I think it is a bit early to dismiss SOI when the cards havent been fully spoiled, nor the story actually started. We have just gotten set-up and there is still good characters. The humans and the Church are still good. And there is also Arlinn.
I've had a suggestion that we start using this thread again. I'll start moving posts that seem more interested in talking about subjective quality than the plot here.
Then I guess this is the right place to say that "The Talented Captain Vraska" really needed some proofreading. I liked the story content, but boy were there some jarring errors.
Then I guess this is the right place to say that "The Talented Captain Vraska" really needed some proofreading. I liked the story content, but boy were there some jarring errors.
Then I guess this is the right place to say that "The Talented Captain Vraska" really needed some proofreading. I liked the story content, but boy were there some jarring errors.
Oh? Like what? (Genuinely curious)
"Vraska had never been hired to do anything other than kill before."
Then later:
"She was humbled, alarmed, and excited all at once. No one had hired her to do anything other than kill before." {looks like a copy-paste error from rearranging where that phrase was going to fit into the story}
"Jace coughed and blinked open his eyes. Vraska snuffed the fire in her mind and looked down at him with no magic in her eyes." {using "eyes" twice in succession like that is awkward}
"Jace finished his first bowl of porridge in two minutes flat..." and "You have two minutes to explain how you found me before I turn you to stone and use you as a paperweight, Jace." {another phrase awkwardly repeated in too-close proximity}
And there are a bunch of slightly more subtle ways in which sentences are constructed in unclear forms, verb tenses are slightly misused ("picked up" instead of "had picked up" for a past-perfect, stuff like that).
It's not bad writing, per se; it's just the sort of rough edges you always have in a draft, which can get smoothed down by a simple copy editing* pass or two. Mostly, it's stuff that is much more noticeable when reading the piece for the first time with no foreknowledge of its content, so the writer really can't ever see it themselves. That's why it's always best to have a different person do a copy edit at least once. I really get the feeling that nobody at Wizards does this for these stories anymore, or if they do they don't go through them with much effort and detailed care. Which I can understand, it's time consuming work for what seems like minor benefit, and everybody's busy.
On the plus side, this story did teach me a new word, "knolling," and even defined it in the sentence where it was used, which is great style!
*I should have said "copy editing" instead of "proofreading" in my original comment; they're technically two different things.
Some repetitions could be emphasis. Jace finishing the bowl in two minutes could have a lot to do with being threatened, for example, in addition to being hungry. I suspect the scene went with Vraska pouring him food, her issuing him that threat, and while doing so, Jace scarfed it down mid-sentence, uncharacteristically.
There are so many problems with these last two stories that it’s frankly baffling. After a string of good stories in Hour of Devastation and the first half of Ixalan, I was beginning to think the streak would last. What makes all of this even more frustrating is that I know Alison Luhrs is better than this. I’ve read her previous stories, I know what she’s capable of. These latest efforts hardly approach the quality I’ve come to associate with her.
(I’m going to look at both The Race Part 1 and Part 2 in this post.)
I’ll start with the good before I get to the bad.
THE GOOD:
-For the most part, Jace and Vraska are still developing well, both as characters and as a pair. They are fun to read about, and I still care about them. It’s nice to have protagonists who I can say that for. It’s been a while.
-The raising of Orazca. The imagery wasn’t all that clear, but the scene was undeniably cool, and I like that our heroes weren’t the first ones to the city. Someone beat them to it, and my money’s on Kumena.
-This line: “Boarding the pirate ship was ironic, but necessary”
-Angrath, the lovable murder-bull. He’s pathetic, but in an endearing way.
-Despite everything I’m going to write next, I am enjoying Ixalan very much overall, and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the story. Given the good writing we’d seen before these last two stories, I’m willing to trust that the worst is out of the way and that now things will get better. Okay, here’s the bad.
THE BAD (Especially in The Race Part 1, but also carrying over into Part 2):
-I realize this content is free, and when I want to read Shakespeare, I’ll read Shakespeare. But I’m just at a loss. Was this not edited? Was this not reviewed? Did no one proofread or revise this before putting it up? Did no one check the dialogue and offer suggestions? I’m not expecting the Great American Novel, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a much higher standard of storytelling than what’s on display here, especially after the great stories we’ve had in previous weeks. I can’t count how many times I was jolted out of the story by instances of poor writing that frankly just stunned me. Here are just a few:
“His eyes were wild and his beard was coarse with a madman's ambivalence.”
“A barbarian's smile spread over the planes of her face” (Who let this one through?)
“Vraska was visibly trying to find a way to put into words what she was trying to say.”
The distracting repetition of certain metaphors within the same story ("rag doll," "planes of her face," etc.)
The repeated use of “dramatically” as an adverb in Part 2. Once was bad. Twice was depressing.
-The Vampires. I know they’re supposed to be bastards, but the Players’ Guide painted them as more nuanced then this. The “vampirism as noble sacrifice” is an interesting angle on the subject, but it’s utterly drowned out by the ravening, psychopathic lunacy we see on display in these stories. We don’t see any dimension of nobility, honor, or human complexity here—in the end, all we’re given are two-bit religious fanatics.
-Mavren Fein in particular. He struck me as comical, which would have been fine if I didn’t also feel that this was unintentional. THE CONSTANT USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS as he ranted and raved didn’t help either, and I could hardly read him with a straight face. Dude, I get that you’re insane, but don’t be a cartoon.
- Just because the writer plays fill-in-the-blank with words like “praise,” “benediction,” “blessed,” “sacrosanct,” “penance,” and every other cliched, pompous-sounding term on the Catholic BINGO scorecard, does not mean they've created or conveyed the sense of an authentic belief system. The narrator seems to lean on these words as a crutch to convey a cheap religiosity without having to flesh out any real substance in the vampires’ culture, worldview, or faith.
-The prisoner Manuel, whimpering in fear next to a cell holding a blood-crazed vampire, asking Mavren Fein how Elenda became the first vampire. Sure, we readers want to know, but why the hell would he care? This struck me as a clumsy way to get exposition across.
-This bit: "To (Huatli’s) knowledge, no River Herald had ever willingly worked with a Sun Empire warrior.
Tishana's assistance still felt extraordinarily strange. Huatli couldn't help but wonder if the merfolk planned to take advantage of her."
Good lord, Huatli. You specifically went looking for a River Herald to lead you Orazca, remember? That’s why you’re here.
-Huatli as a character. I really wanted to like her, but there is nothing distinctive about her personality, nothing to make me care about her quest, nothing to make me curious to know more about her. She could get sucked down into quicksand at the beginning of RIVALS and the story would lose nothing. My hope is that teaming up with Angrath will provide an amusing dynamic and give her character a chance to shine. Sometimes it takes a minotaur.
-Finally, after five character-driven stories, The Plot finally hit back full force here. And by “force” I mean it was really, really forced. Events happened not because they made sense, nor because they felt natural, but because Plot demanded it. For example — Ixalan is a huge continent; what are the odds that all the major Orazca-seekers from each faction would come to the exact same starting point, on the exact same day, so that they can all race each other to Orazca at the same time? The moment Huatli showed up on the beach, my jaw dropped—not at the development itself, but at the storyteller’s sheer audacity. And then even Angrath found his way into the mix, appearing out of who knows where. As much as I like him as a character, the pure coincidence of it all raised far more disbelief than I was willing to suspend.
To the Creative Team’s credit, I never approach Magic fiction with a pessimistic or cynical eye; I look forward to the new installments every week, and begin each story with the expectation that I’ll enjoy it. My goodwill is theirs to lose. There is still a lot of good in the Ixalan story, and I am looking forward to RIX. Ixalan has given us great protagonists in Jace and Vraska, fun new characters in Angrath and Breeches, and a cool villain in Kumena. I care about the setting and am eager to see the wonders of the fabled city, and I’m hopeful that the writing will return to form with the next set.
Goryo: Yes, I'm really with you on these two stories. I have some theories about the reasons for the problems.
1. I'm pretty certain that in the long, plot-heavy stories like these two, Alison Luhrs is not responsible for most of the writing. She (or someone) is putting together an outline, and various writers are filling in sections. You can very obviously see the differences in writing style and quality between sections.
2. No, I really think that nobody is editing or proof reading these things before they go live, not with any kind of thoroughness at least. That's been a noticeable phenomenon throughout the Ixalan stories. But in other stories, if the unedited writing is pretty good, it's less noticeable. At worst, a few groaner errors or weird repetitions get through, but overall it's okay. That's because Alison -- and presumably some of the other Creative staffers -- are actually pretty good writers. You can't blame them for having stuff in their unedited drafts that an editor would normally fix. That's why even professional, highly-regarded literary authors almost always have good editors too.
So when we combine these, what we get is writing of very uneven quality, with no real editorial refinement to bind it together and correct its flaws. So it ends up reading like exactly what it is: a plot outline filled in by writers of varying quality, focusing on hitting plot points instead of creating good characterization or emotional effects.
1. I'm pretty certain that in the long, plot-heavy stories like these two, Alison Luhrs is not responsible for most of the writing. She (or someone) is putting together an outline, and various writers are filling in sections. You can very obviously see the differences in writing style and quality between sections.
Note that with the shift to the 'Narrative Team' byline, the articles are much more of a collaborative effort.
Quite a few creative team members have left in the last year, and those positions haven't been filled :/
1. I'm pretty certain that in the long, plot-heavy stories like these two, Alison Luhrs is not responsible for most of the writing. She (or someone) is putting together an outline, and various writers are filling in sections. You can very obviously see the differences in writing style and quality between sections.
Note that with the shift to the 'Narrative Team' byline, the articles are much more of a collaborative effort.
Quite a few creative team members have left in the last year, and those positions haven't been filled :/
Yeah, you can really see the problems of understaffing and excessive workloads taking their toll on the Ixalan stories. I *really* hope they bring some more people on board before Dominaria's release.
I think it's a fabulous idea, and exactly the move they should make. Obviously, there is the question of how well it is executed -- and having not read any of Martha Wells's work, I can't judge whether she was the best choice of author yet, though her resume looks pretty optimal -- but this is a very good way to address the story problems.
I've always said, since I started reading the novels and stories back in Lorwyn, that story writing was the Creative Team's weakest point. It makes sense. They spend the vast majority of their time on world building, art direction, and visual design, which they absolutely should since that's fundamental to the entire game. But that's meant that story writing has always been a lower priority, and since story writing is a significantly different skillset from those other jobs, it's essentially been a crapshoot whether they've had people on staff who could also write well while they were being paid to be good at other creative jobs.
Hiring a professional writer from outside is the best way to fix this problem. It's too bad that Ixalan had to suffer for it -- I'm pretty sure they treated this block's story as a minimal-effort dump while they focused on Dominaria -- but in my opinion it's coming at exactly the right time, when the game needs it for the big Dominaria push.
So with Digges now being gone (and the thread discussing that going waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off the rails), do you think his absence will have a negative effect on MTG storytelling going forward? or if you weren't a fan of his influence, do you think things will improve now that he's gone?
Her writing quality has gone downhill. There are many inexplainable problems in the narrative- some parts too slow, some parts too fast, others...with some obvious handwaving.
This would not bother me as much if it was produced by the creative team but Martha was hired For her story writing and I haven’t been very impressed lately
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“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
Her writing quality has gone downhill. There are many inexplainable problems in the narrative- some parts too slow, some parts too fast, others...with some obvious handwaving.
This would not bother me as much if it was produced by the creative team but Martha was hired For her story writing and I haven’t been very impressed lately
I know what you mean. Some parts of the story seemed to move inexplicably fast, and some bits of the description and dialogue seemed oddly blunt. It definitely has the feel of a much longer piece of writing that has been condensed. I wonder how much is her fault directly or just the constraints of the job, and what was asked of her.
Her writing quality has gone downhill. There are many inexplainable problems in the narrative- some parts too slow, some parts too fast, others...with some obvious handwaving.
This would not bother me as much if it was produced by the creative team but Martha was hired For her story writing and I haven’t been very impressed lately
I told you guys that the Story being meh wasn't a function of the writers being terrible, trying to tell a story at the scale they are trying to tell it with the amount of space they are trying to tell it in will fail.
Her writing quality has gone downhill. There are many inexplainable problems in the narrative- some parts too slow, some parts too fast, others...with some obvious handwaving.
This would not bother me as much if it was produced by the creative team but Martha was hired For her story writing and I haven’t been very impressed lately
I told you guys that the Story being meh wasn't a function of the writers being terrible, trying to tell a story at the scale they are trying to tell it with the amount of space they are trying to tell it in will fail.
I largely agree with this. I definitely think Martha's been a massive improvement over what came before, but you can still see issues arising from the structure of the storytelling. They needed WAY more space to tell this Dominaria story right.
Her writing quality has gone downhill. There are many inexplainable problems in the narrative- some parts too slow, some parts too fast, others...with some obvious handwaving.
This would not bother me as much if it was produced by the creative team but Martha was hired For her story writing and I haven’t been very impressed lately
I told you guys that the Story being meh wasn't a function of the writers being terrible, trying to tell a story at the scale they are trying to tell it with the amount of space they are trying to tell it in will fail.
I largely agree with this. I definitely think Martha's been a massive improvement over what came before, but you can still see issues arising from the structure of the storytelling. They needed WAY more space to tell this Dominaria story right.
The structure has been the problem since well the 2 block cycles where they were trying to tell the same level of stories in 2/3 the space, and now they are going to be trying to do it in 1/3 the space.
So with the final Welles story being in the books, what are your final thoughts/assessments/grades on how well she handled everything?
and how does that affect your expectation levels for Ravnica III?
Lets start with Ravnica, doesnt really impact it all in my book. Wells is not writing. Hopefully Teferi, Jaya and Karn all get power showings that better live up to their Power Level then under Wells. I hope their performance in Wells Dominaria is not the new standard going forward.
As for Dominaria...hated it. Not a surprise I think that is obvious if you seen me on the other thread. First, the story tried to juggle way too much. We spent forever getting all the characters together for a showdown that was a massive letdown. The Weatherlight was nice to see but again its nothing special cause it cannot planeswalk anymore (making it no different then most vehicles on Kaladesh) and thus that makes the time spent on a new Weatherlight crew a waste of time.
Teferi was at the center of marketing and did nothing of note this story. All Wells did is give him a wife (with a character we never met in the present) and a daughter who is not likely to be relevant at all which rang consultation prize. He has gotten nothing done in terms of getting Zhalfir back (60 years to before even trying to find Urza Artifacts) or getting his own spark back (Jhoira did it somehow no explanation, resparking off panel). He primarily contributed jokes because although it was said they needed his power, what did he really do? He didn't contribute much at all besides jobbing out next to Karn and Jaya against scrubs like Yargle and Urgoros. He officially joined the Gatewatch but of course that wasn't important enough to see. Wells can say she loves Teferi all she wants in interviews but she didn't show it at all in the story.
Karn, also the center of marketing. He at least got his objective accomplished getting a superweapon. But I still find him not talking to Jhoira because of Venser lame and pointless. We got one short scene of Teferi, Karn and Jhoira all together again after 60 years or so and that was it with everything patched up. He was also the least useful against such mighty Titans of Yargle and Urgoros.
Jaya, she is back seems in character and beside her weak showing in the fights nothing to comment. I am still confused on when she met Karn and decided to help him with New Phyrexia.
Jodah, quick cameo as bitter Ex. Hates Planeswalkers still and yet is teaching at a School named after Urza's old academy. Blamed Oldwalkers for everything wrong, his time to shine against Belzenlok and he contributes nothing. Hypocrisy my name is Jodah.
Belzenlok put up less fight then his top Lts...Yargle should have been the final boss and only showed up at the end despite apparently being able to menance the whole plane for decades. A plane that is 2.5x the size of Earth.
So basically unless the old character name was not Jhoira they got shortchanged. Jhoira fans should be happy. She was a saint (just forget the part where she had Teferi's spark and almost used it to restart a Weatherlight that cannot travel planes) who got to show off all her skills in leadership, team building, motivation, puzzle/problem solving, artifice and magic. She even got plenty of scenes to bond with Lili.
Lili much of the story time was spent on her bonding with Gideon and Jhoira...but we didn't answer anything to do with the Raven Man despite returning to the scene of the Crime. We learned nothing new about the Chain Veil either. And she took out her brother pretty quickly so that wasn't even climatic. The goal seemed to make us feel bad for Lili cause she really had turned over a new leaf. Hence Jace cameos as Mean and Bitter Ex Boyfriend.
The only positive is Teferi resparked and will see more of him, Karn and Jaya going forward not under the pen of Wells.
In short, Wells was clearly biased towards Lili and Jhoira and it showed.
maybe Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman would write upcoming Ravnica stories because Jace should be the focus and they are quite experienced in writing about mages, particularly antisocial ones.
that said, i do not like how Wells portrayed Jace in her story. seems like all his character development in Ixalan went out the window. maybe she didn't have the opportunity to read about Ixalan so she used old Jace as her template.
I dunno about that. Remember, NuJace is fully focused on his responsibilities as Living Guildpact, and needs to be all-business in addressing the Bolas threat. The transition between happy-to-see-everybody Jace at the end of Ixalan and cut-the-BS-and-get-to-business Jace in Dominaria is a bit too jarring, but I can still understand it.
And as far as his rather harsh attitude towards Lili is concerned, NuJace has had the veil (pun intended) pulled away of how she had been treating him. and he remembers EVERYTHING now, including all of the times she double-crossed him and used him for personal gain. and he remembers that she used to work for the guy he's now trying to find a way to defeat, that is threatening his adopted home. he would naturally be not very enthused to see her again.
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Decks:
Casual
R Burn R
EDH
R Godo Voltron R
RUG ETB Overload RUG
BW Clerics Pain and Drain BW
GW Spirits!!! GW
RUG Landfall Silliness RUG
More likely Red/White (if not mono-Red based on Avacyn and Flameblade Angel), but I welcome the same.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
"Vraska had never been hired to do anything other than kill before."
Then later:
"She was humbled, alarmed, and excited all at once. No one had hired her to do anything other than kill before." {looks like a copy-paste error from rearranging where that phrase was going to fit into the story}
"Jace coughed and blinked open his eyes. Vraska snuffed the fire in her mind and looked down at him with no magic in her eyes." {using "eyes" twice in succession like that is awkward}
"Jace finished his first bowl of porridge in two minutes flat..." and "You have two minutes to explain how you found me before I turn you to stone and use you as a paperweight, Jace." {another phrase awkwardly repeated in too-close proximity}
And there are a bunch of slightly more subtle ways in which sentences are constructed in unclear forms, verb tenses are slightly misused ("picked up" instead of "had picked up" for a past-perfect, stuff like that).
It's not bad writing, per se; it's just the sort of rough edges you always have in a draft, which can get smoothed down by a simple copy editing* pass or two. Mostly, it's stuff that is much more noticeable when reading the piece for the first time with no foreknowledge of its content, so the writer really can't ever see it themselves. That's why it's always best to have a different person do a copy edit at least once. I really get the feeling that nobody at Wizards does this for these stories anymore, or if they do they don't go through them with much effort and detailed care. Which I can understand, it's time consuming work for what seems like minor benefit, and everybody's busy.
On the plus side, this story did teach me a new word, "knolling," and even defined it in the sentence where it was used, which is great style!
*I should have said "copy editing" instead of "proofreading" in my original comment; they're technically two different things.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
(I’m going to look at both The Race Part 1 and Part 2 in this post.)
I’ll start with the good before I get to the bad.
THE GOOD:
-For the most part, Jace and Vraska are still developing well, both as characters and as a pair. They are fun to read about, and I still care about them. It’s nice to have protagonists who I can say that for. It’s been a while.
-The raising of Orazca. The imagery wasn’t all that clear, but the scene was undeniably cool, and I like that our heroes weren’t the first ones to the city. Someone beat them to it, and my money’s on Kumena.
-This line: “Boarding the pirate ship was ironic, but necessary”
-Angrath, the lovable murder-bull. He’s pathetic, but in an endearing way.
-Despite everything I’m going to write next, I am enjoying Ixalan very much overall, and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the story. Given the good writing we’d seen before these last two stories, I’m willing to trust that the worst is out of the way and that now things will get better. Okay, here’s the bad.
THE BAD (Especially in The Race Part 1, but also carrying over into Part 2):
-I realize this content is free, and when I want to read Shakespeare, I’ll read Shakespeare. But I’m just at a loss. Was this not edited? Was this not reviewed? Did no one proofread or revise this before putting it up? Did no one check the dialogue and offer suggestions? I’m not expecting the Great American Novel, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a much higher standard of storytelling than what’s on display here, especially after the great stories we’ve had in previous weeks. I can’t count how many times I was jolted out of the story by instances of poor writing that frankly just stunned me. Here are just a few:
“His eyes were wild and his beard was coarse with a madman's ambivalence.”
“A barbarian's smile spread over the planes of her face” (Who let this one through?)
“Vraska was visibly trying to find a way to put into words what she was trying to say.”
The distracting repetition of certain metaphors within the same story ("rag doll," "planes of her face," etc.)
The repeated use of “dramatically” as an adverb in Part 2. Once was bad. Twice was depressing.
-The Vampires. I know they’re supposed to be bastards, but the Players’ Guide painted them as more nuanced then this. The “vampirism as noble sacrifice” is an interesting angle on the subject, but it’s utterly drowned out by the ravening, psychopathic lunacy we see on display in these stories. We don’t see any dimension of nobility, honor, or human complexity here—in the end, all we’re given are two-bit religious fanatics.
-Mavren Fein in particular. He struck me as comical, which would have been fine if I didn’t also feel that this was unintentional. THE CONSTANT USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS as he ranted and raved didn’t help either, and I could hardly read him with a straight face. Dude, I get that you’re insane, but don’t be a cartoon.
- Just because the writer plays fill-in-the-blank with words like “praise,” “benediction,” “blessed,” “sacrosanct,” “penance,” and every other cliched, pompous-sounding term on the Catholic BINGO scorecard, does not mean they've created or conveyed the sense of an authentic belief system. The narrator seems to lean on these words as a crutch to convey a cheap religiosity without having to flesh out any real substance in the vampires’ culture, worldview, or faith.
-The prisoner Manuel, whimpering in fear next to a cell holding a blood-crazed vampire, asking Mavren Fein how Elenda became the first vampire. Sure, we readers want to know, but why the hell would he care? This struck me as a clumsy way to get exposition across.
-This bit: "To (Huatli’s) knowledge, no River Herald had ever willingly worked with a Sun Empire warrior.
Tishana's assistance still felt extraordinarily strange. Huatli couldn't help but wonder if the merfolk planned to take advantage of her."
Good lord, Huatli. You specifically went looking for a River Herald to lead you Orazca, remember? That’s why you’re here.
-Huatli as a character. I really wanted to like her, but there is nothing distinctive about her personality, nothing to make me care about her quest, nothing to make me curious to know more about her. She could get sucked down into quicksand at the beginning of RIVALS and the story would lose nothing. My hope is that teaming up with Angrath will provide an amusing dynamic and give her character a chance to shine. Sometimes it takes a minotaur.
-Finally, after five character-driven stories, The Plot finally hit back full force here. And by “force” I mean it was really, really forced. Events happened not because they made sense, nor because they felt natural, but because Plot demanded it. For example — Ixalan is a huge continent; what are the odds that all the major Orazca-seekers from each faction would come to the exact same starting point, on the exact same day, so that they can all race each other to Orazca at the same time? The moment Huatli showed up on the beach, my jaw dropped—not at the development itself, but at the storyteller’s sheer audacity. And then even Angrath found his way into the mix, appearing out of who knows where. As much as I like him as a character, the pure coincidence of it all raised far more disbelief than I was willing to suspend.
To the Creative Team’s credit, I never approach Magic fiction with a pessimistic or cynical eye; I look forward to the new installments every week, and begin each story with the expectation that I’ll enjoy it. My goodwill is theirs to lose. There is still a lot of good in the Ixalan story, and I am looking forward to RIX. Ixalan has given us great protagonists in Jace and Vraska, fun new characters in Angrath and Breeches, and a cool villain in Kumena. I care about the setting and am eager to see the wonders of the fabled city, and I’m hopeful that the writing will return to form with the next set.
1. I'm pretty certain that in the long, plot-heavy stories like these two, Alison Luhrs is not responsible for most of the writing. She (or someone) is putting together an outline, and various writers are filling in sections. You can very obviously see the differences in writing style and quality between sections.
2. No, I really think that nobody is editing or proof reading these things before they go live, not with any kind of thoroughness at least. That's been a noticeable phenomenon throughout the Ixalan stories. But in other stories, if the unedited writing is pretty good, it's less noticeable. At worst, a few groaner errors or weird repetitions get through, but overall it's okay. That's because Alison -- and presumably some of the other Creative staffers -- are actually pretty good writers. You can't blame them for having stuff in their unedited drafts that an editor would normally fix. That's why even professional, highly-regarded literary authors almost always have good editors too.
So when we combine these, what we get is writing of very uneven quality, with no real editorial refinement to bind it together and correct its flaws. So it ends up reading like exactly what it is: a plot outline filled in by writers of varying quality, focusing on hitting plot points instead of creating good characterization or emotional effects.
Quite a few creative team members have left in the last year, and those positions haven't been filled :/
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Yeah, you can really see the problems of understaffing and excessive workloads taking their toll on the Ixalan stories. I *really* hope they bring some more people on board before Dominaria's release.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/introducing-martha-wells-dominaria-magic-story-author-2018-02-14
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I think it's a fabulous idea, and exactly the move they should make. Obviously, there is the question of how well it is executed -- and having not read any of Martha Wells's work, I can't judge whether she was the best choice of author yet, though her resume looks pretty optimal -- but this is a very good way to address the story problems.
I've always said, since I started reading the novels and stories back in Lorwyn, that story writing was the Creative Team's weakest point. It makes sense. They spend the vast majority of their time on world building, art direction, and visual design, which they absolutely should since that's fundamental to the entire game. But that's meant that story writing has always been a lower priority, and since story writing is a significantly different skillset from those other jobs, it's essentially been a crapshoot whether they've had people on staff who could also write well while they were being paid to be good at other creative jobs.
Hiring a professional writer from outside is the best way to fix this problem. It's too bad that Ixalan had to suffer for it -- I'm pretty sure they treated this block's story as a minimal-effort dump while they focused on Dominaria -- but in my opinion it's coming at exactly the right time, when the game needs it for the big Dominaria push.
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Her writing quality has gone downhill. There are many inexplainable problems in the narrative- some parts too slow, some parts too fast, others...with some obvious handwaving.
This would not bother me as much if it was produced by the creative team but Martha was hired For her story writing and I haven’t been very impressed lately
The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
I know what you mean. Some parts of the story seemed to move inexplicably fast, and some bits of the description and dialogue seemed oddly blunt. It definitely has the feel of a much longer piece of writing that has been condensed. I wonder how much is her fault directly or just the constraints of the job, and what was asked of her.
I told you guys that the Story being meh wasn't a function of the writers being terrible, trying to tell a story at the scale they are trying to tell it with the amount of space they are trying to tell it in will fail.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
I largely agree with this. I definitely think Martha's been a massive improvement over what came before, but you can still see issues arising from the structure of the storytelling. They needed WAY more space to tell this Dominaria story right.
The structure has been the problem since well the 2 block cycles where they were trying to tell the same level of stories in 2/3 the space, and now they are going to be trying to do it in 1/3 the space.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
and how does that affect your expectation levels for Ravnica III?
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Lets start with Ravnica, doesnt really impact it all in my book. Wells is not writing. Hopefully Teferi, Jaya and Karn all get power showings that better live up to their Power Level then under Wells. I hope their performance in Wells Dominaria is not the new standard going forward.
As for Dominaria...hated it. Not a surprise I think that is obvious if you seen me on the other thread. First, the story tried to juggle way too much. We spent forever getting all the characters together for a showdown that was a massive letdown. The Weatherlight was nice to see but again its nothing special cause it cannot planeswalk anymore (making it no different then most vehicles on Kaladesh) and thus that makes the time spent on a new Weatherlight crew a waste of time.
Teferi was at the center of marketing and did nothing of note this story. All Wells did is give him a wife (with a character we never met in the present) and a daughter who is not likely to be relevant at all which rang consultation prize. He has gotten nothing done in terms of getting Zhalfir back (60 years to before even trying to find Urza Artifacts) or getting his own spark back (Jhoira did it somehow no explanation, resparking off panel). He primarily contributed jokes because although it was said they needed his power, what did he really do? He didn't contribute much at all besides jobbing out next to Karn and Jaya against scrubs like Yargle and Urgoros. He officially joined the Gatewatch but of course that wasn't important enough to see. Wells can say she loves Teferi all she wants in interviews but she didn't show it at all in the story.
Karn, also the center of marketing. He at least got his objective accomplished getting a superweapon. But I still find him not talking to Jhoira because of Venser lame and pointless. We got one short scene of Teferi, Karn and Jhoira all together again after 60 years or so and that was it with everything patched up. He was also the least useful against such mighty Titans of Yargle and Urgoros.
Jaya, she is back seems in character and beside her weak showing in the fights nothing to comment. I am still confused on when she met Karn and decided to help him with New Phyrexia.
Jodah, quick cameo as bitter Ex. Hates Planeswalkers still and yet is teaching at a School named after Urza's old academy. Blamed Oldwalkers for everything wrong, his time to shine against Belzenlok and he contributes nothing. Hypocrisy my name is Jodah.
Belzenlok put up less fight then his top Lts...Yargle should have been the final boss and only showed up at the end despite apparently being able to menance the whole plane for decades. A plane that is 2.5x the size of Earth.
So basically unless the old character name was not Jhoira they got shortchanged. Jhoira fans should be happy. She was a saint (just forget the part where she had Teferi's spark and almost used it to restart a Weatherlight that cannot travel planes) who got to show off all her skills in leadership, team building, motivation, puzzle/problem solving, artifice and magic. She even got plenty of scenes to bond with Lili.
Lili much of the story time was spent on her bonding with Gideon and Jhoira...but we didn't answer anything to do with the Raven Man despite returning to the scene of the Crime. We learned nothing new about the Chain Veil either. And she took out her brother pretty quickly so that wasn't even climatic. The goal seemed to make us feel bad for Lili cause she really had turned over a new leaf. Hence Jace cameos as Mean and Bitter Ex Boyfriend.
The only positive is Teferi resparked and will see more of him, Karn and Jaya going forward not under the pen of Wells.
In short, Wells was clearly biased towards Lili and Jhoira and it showed.
that said, i do not like how Wells portrayed Jace in her story. seems like all his character development in Ixalan went out the window. maybe she didn't have the opportunity to read about Ixalan so she used old Jace as her template.
And as far as his rather harsh attitude towards Lili is concerned, NuJace has had the veil (pun intended) pulled away of how she had been treating him. and he remembers EVERYTHING now, including all of the times she double-crossed him and used him for personal gain. and he remembers that she used to work for the guy he's now trying to find a way to defeat, that is threatening his adopted home. he would naturally be not very enthused to see her again.
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