The Soda Shop Message Boards

Check out the new feature on my blog: Jason and Mitch: Secret Agents. Tell me what you think of it.

Who wants me to make an UAIOB insider. Just like the TNT insider it will give updates about my newest posts.

Wooton Bassett wrote:Who wants me to make an UAIOB insider. Just like the TNT insider it will give updates about my newest posts.

I think it't be great! I'm considering doing something like that with JAAIOB.

Very interesting... Before I read it, I thought it would be a little too similar to AIC, but once I read it, I realized it was a very unique adventure. I love the action-adventure scenes, and Mitch is awesome with Jason! This is quite different from AIC, and I congratulate you on it. But one thing. Some of the dialouge didn't include punctuation marks. You might want to fix that. Other than that minor punctuation issue, I think it's great! It's an incredibly intriguing story, and I look forward to hearing more in a week or two!

CreativeThinker101 wrote:Very interesting... Before I read it, I thought it would be a little too similar to AIC, but once I read it, I realized it was a very unique adventure. I love the action-adventure scenes, and Mitch is awesome with Jason! This is quite different from AIC, and I congratulate you on it. But one thing. Some of the dialouge didn't include punctuation marks. You might want to fix that. Other than that minor punctuation issue, I think it's great! It's an incredibly intriguing story, and I look forward to hearing more in a week or two!

Thanks (also, we might hear from Monty later on)

Wooton Bassett wrote:

CreativeThinker101 wrote:Very interesting... Before I read it, I thought it would be a little too similar to AIC, but once I read it, I realized it was a very unique adventure. I love the action-adventure scenes, and Mitch is awesome with Jason! This is quite different from AIC, and I congratulate you on it. But one thing. Some of the dialouge didn't include punctuation marks. You might want to fix that. Other than that minor punctuation issue, I think it's great! It's an incredibly intriguing story, and I look forward to hearing more in a week or two!

Thanks (also, we might hear from Monty later on)

Ooh, spoilers! I can't wait for Monty! He was amazing in GRC. I also have a couple spoilers about AIC that I could give away! (But I'm not going to.) By the way, did you get the pm I sent you?

CreativeThinker101 wrote:

Wooton Bassett wrote:

CreativeThinker101 wrote:Very interesting... Before I read it, I thought it would be a little too similar to AIC, but once I read it, I realized it was a very unique adventure. I love the action-adventure scenes, and Mitch is awesome with Jason! This is quite different from AIC, and I congratulate you on it. But one thing. Some of the dialouge didn't include punctuation marks. You might want to fix that. Other than that minor punctuation issue, I think it's great! It's an incredibly intriguing story, and I look forward to hearing more in a week or two!

Thanks (also, we might hear from Monty later on)

Ooh, spoilers! I can't wait for Monty! He was amazing in GRC. I also have a couple spoilers about AIC that I could give away! (But I'm not going to.) By the way, did you get the pm I sent you?

yes. I PMed you back.

*Update* I added a Google+ button so whoever has a google+ account please click it and it will publicly recommend my blog on Google+

To be completely frank, I enjoy your blog pretty well, but not enough to draw me to it often, Wooton. Your reviews rarely have much depth. In fact, that's kinda the problem with all your work. You present the news just as news, which I could get on any AIO site. Mr. Thinker ("Alex") puts his little spin on it with humor and pretending to be Alex.
Your two installments of Jason and Mitch: Secret Agents just don't show a whole lot of work.They are amusing and exciting, yet fail to inspire a great deal of lasting interest. If your installments even approached the length of "Alex's" delightful AIC, one would probably stop reading. Apart from being minimally short, the dialogue is delivered blandly. "exclaimed", "said" etc, go the characters. Why not use speaker attributes? This is a word for "tags", which you stick before a character's speech. Then you don't need to let the reader know who's talking, they know you are speaking of Mitch, or whoever. Example:
Jason leveled his gun. "The name's... Bond. James Bond. Hi, Whisperer. Oh, I mean Squirt."
See? That's much more interesting than a bunch of saids and excalimeds, and flows better. In an action story, where things need to flow or the action is not gripping, that's critical. It's an easy fix, but it makes things soooo much better.
Plus, the dialogue itself just doesn't really work. Jason, Mitch, and Bourland all speak with similar phrasing and manner. They have different personalities, that, in the shows, manifest themselves through their lines. You don't have that. It's like listening to the same person taking turns talking to himself.
And as for depth, forget it. Depth in a few paragraphs? There just isn't any. There's no emotion of thought to speak of. It's just run, bump, woosh.
They are enjoyable. But if you want people to keep coming back to read them, you need more to offer.
This lack of depth continues on into your interviews. That you have interviews with these AIO legends at all is amazing, of course, and I'm a sucker for them! But they aren't probing in the least. You just ask a few standard questions I could get from any interview with them on any site. "What's your favorite episode?" "What was is it like working with... (insert the people he/she is working with)" "What is your favorite thing about (insert the interview-ie's job)". You don't ask anything much off the well-beaten track.
I hope this doesn't all sound too harsh. I'm not trying to say your blog is awful. Heck, no! We'd be sad if it stopped! But, if you want people to like it anywhere as much as Just Another AIO Blog, or Twists and Turns, or... well, all those other great AIO sites, you need to make it better. What you put in your blog is what you'll get out. If you're unwilling to go the work to go the extra mile, I understand. You already have enough quality to be okay. A really good blog is hard work, and time consuming. It's all up to you: how much does having and AIO fan site mean to you? How hard are you willing to work to get a significant following?

Pound Foolish wrote:To be completely frank, I enjoy your blog pretty well, but not enough to draw me to it often, Wooton. Your reviews rarely have much depth. In fact, that's kinda the problem with all your work. You present the news just as news, which I could get on any AIO site. Mr. Thinker ("Alex") puts his little spin on it with humor and pretending to be Alex.
Your two installments of Jason and Mitch: Secret Agents just don't show a whole lot of work.They are amusing and exciting, yet fail to inspire a great deal of lasting interest. If your installments even approached the length of "Alex's" delightful AIC, one would probably stop reading. Apart from being minimally short, the dialogue is delivered blandly. "exclaimed", "said" etc, go the characters. Why not use speaker attributes? This is a word for "tags", which you stick before a character's speech. Then you don't need to let the reader know who's talking, they know you are speaking of Mitch, or whoever. Example:
Jason leveled his. "The name's... Bond. James Bond. Hi, Whisperer. Oh, I mean Squirt."
See? That's much more interesting than a bunch of saids and excalimeds, and flows better. In an action story, where things need to flow or the action is not gripping, that's critical. It's an easy fix, but it makes things soooo much better.
Plus, the dialogue itself just doesn't really work. Jason, Mitch, and Bourland all speak with similar phrasing and manner. They have different personalities, that, in the shows, manifest themselves through their lines. You don't have that. It's like listening to the same person taking turns talking to himself.
And as for depth, forget it. Depth in a few paragraphs? There just isn't any. There's no emotion of thought to speak of. It's just run, bump, woosh.
They are enjoyable. But if you want people to keep coming back to read them, you need more to offer.
This lack of depth continues on into your interviews. That you have interviews with these AIO legends at all is amazing, of course, and I'm a sucker for them! But they aren't probing in the least. You just ask a few standard questions I could get from any interview with them on any site. "What's your favorite episode?" "What was is it like working with... (insert the people he/she is working with)" "What is your favorite thing about (insert the interview-ie's job)". You don't ask anything much off the well-beaten track.
I hope this doesn't all sound too harsh. I'm not trying to say your blog is awful. Heck, no! We'd be sad if it stopped! But, if you want people to like it anywhere as much as Just Another AIO Blog, or Twists and Turns, or... well, all those other great AIO sites, you need to make it better. What you put in your blog is what you'll get out. If you're unwilling to go the work to go the extra mile, I understand. You already have enough quality to be okay. A really good blog is hard work, and time consuming. It's all up to you: how much does having and AIO fan site mean to you? How hard are you willing to work to get a significant following?

You don't sound harsh at all. i will work on a lot of those things. I've been trying to make everything more in-depth.

When will Jason and Mitch #3 be out?

The Old Judge wrote:When will Jason and Mitch #3 be out?

Probably next week sometime.

Wow, PF, that was quite a good, harsh review of sorts. I wish people would be harsh about JAAIOB and tell me everything I'm doing wrong once in a while! I don't agree with everything you said, but most of it was painfully true.

CreativeThinker, I'll be doing a Courtroom of your site soon. Remember, you wanted painfully harsh.

The Old Judge wrote:CreativeThinker, I'll be doing a Courtroom of your site soon. Remember, you wanted painfully harsh.

I did want painfully harsh. I stand by that statement. But I don't want all negatives. But I know you wouldn't put all negatives anyway. Oh my gosh, I'm really excited now! When will The Courtroom be out?

I liked your blog a lot. Jason and Mitch: Secret Agents was my favorite. It was very detailed.
The Imagination Station is useful to find other AIO sites.
I liked looking at all the characters you have on the character profiles.
All together your blog is very, very good.

Wooton, when will Jason & Mitch #3 be out?

Whittifer wrote:I liked your blog a lot. Jason and Mitch: Secret Agents was my favorite. It was very detailed.
The Imagination Station is useful to find other AIO sites.
I liked looking at all the characters you have on the character profiles.
All together your blog is very, very good.

Thanks. Oh and Old Judge, it should be out at the end of this week. Probably Saturday. Suzylou has become an author for my blog so she will be posting on it now and then.

Suzy!? Awesomesauce! I can't wait!

Suzy? Oh my wordy!