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crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






ViggyNash posted:

I'm going to try writing two different versions of the story; one version will be told in subjective third person from the perspective of the characters directly involved, and the other will be what I've been trying, and failing miserably, to do, which is a first person perspective of the fourth character I keep mentioning who is, for most of the story, simply observing, and I'll definitely add some voice to it. When both are done, I'll post both, and you guys can tell me what you think.


I don't have every word written out, but I do have a mental layout of all the events, from beginning to end. I keep posting my introduction because I wasn't really sure how to start.

If I had a nickle for every story I had a mental layout of, I'd loving be a middle manager at a medium sized company with about $40,000.

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shooz
Oct 10, 2006
there's no life like no life

Helsing posted:

It feels like you're writing a movie script rather than a short story.

This is the exact feeling I had when I read your piece, ViggyNash. I can see the way it would be shot; a far-off shot of the harbour, then a closer shot of an alley where we see a young girl gripping a fence, a sleek woman pointing a gun at the girl and a grey-haired man ready to attack the woman. But you can't, or at least shouldn't, show every detail of a scene in writing. In a movie it might take ten seconds to do that, but in writing you're using several paragraphs. That makes the reader think these guys are just standing around for ten minutes doing nothing. And it gets boring - like others have pointed out. If I were you I'd just forget about the scenery. Don't worry whether or not your reader will imagine something different than you intended - that usually happens. You have to capture your audience using words - not by describing scenes you want them to see. Maybe it would help if you tried to think in words to begin with, rather than visualizing the scene and then trying to put it into words.


ViggyNash posted:

I keep posting my introduction because I wasn't really sure how to start.

How about you skip the intro and start somewhere else? Even if you're not sure on how to introduce your characters, just start writing the story. You can always go back an add some introductory elements if you think they're needed.

shooz fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Aug 11, 2013

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW
It's been a while since I've said this in this thread and others, so I'll say it again.

Just loving write something.

Write something.

Stop talking about it and put fingers to loving keys. Reworking a meaningless paragraph where nothing actually happens, but only begins to happen, where characters don't exist but are only described, and a setting does nothing but is only painted as a picture, is not writing something. Write dialogue, action, plot advancement.

loving write something.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
Tonsured, I must admit I may not be the best person to critique this - it didn’t really connect with me and I mostly chose yours because it was the most recent text nobody else had already critiqued better than I could.

Tonsured posted:

Outside the morgue a hawk coasted on thermals above highway 80, the pavement in the parking lot was hot, re-radiating sunlight for the sole purpose of blistering my feet. Outside the morgue, a hawk coasted on thermals above highway 80. The pavement in the parking lot was re-radiating sunlight for the sole purpose of blistering my feet.
The she beast with hamhock arms waved me in.
He was dead. Good for him. She? He? Who’s the narrator? I’m confused rather than intrigued
Diet iced tea in hand, I went back outside to soothe my soul with sucralose. It didn't help. Wanted something different, corn syrup was lighter on the mood if a bit heavier on the thighs. The metaphor kinda fails because corn syrup being light is still a metaphor about the drink getting you down, not up (just less so than diet iced tea)
Doug never liked me and the hawk flew away.
In the distance, a mufflerless car called me out, puttering loud, lurching forward at haphazard angles, and spouting incomprehensible profanities. It was Doug, dead Doug coming to gloat. He had won after all, beaten me to it.
Can't I do it? End myself now, end this now, this waiting around, pretending to feel sad for those that have already escaped.?
Why’s the narrator suicidal? Just because all the purple prose is getting him down?
The car slid into me then dissipated as vapor into the air,. Aafter the cloud settled*,* I could see Doug standing before me*,* naked except for a harp.
"You've gotten fat," Doug said.
I said nothing.
"I said, 'You've gotten fat', fat ears."
Even dead Doug was a dick. So is the narrator, actually. All he does is say mean things about people and complain.
"C'mon, say something, or are you too busy being flaccid?"
A younger me would have bleed for that remark, launched a fist to flatten his face and laughed about it. I’m not sure what the narrator is (not) angry about. This is nothing anybody would trade blows over. I was soft then, easily bruised.Strange image when you’re saying he was more fightey? I am different now, my ego is calloused, hardened from years of failure. "There was a hawk here," I offered.
"Oh? A big one? With wings?" Doug grinned and pantomimed a flap.
"Flying on the thermals."
"Ha! What a laugh, I'm dead and you go bird watching. Where's the respect?"
"Go to hell."
"Been there, done that. Better places in this universe*,* Tom, brighter places, have all of eternity for cold lightless chasms. Places with flowers, birds*,* bees and sun. That's where I'm goin' now."
"Served your time*,* did you?"
"Yeah. A life sentence. On this poo poo heap," Doug said gesturing around him. "Compared to this*,* Hell is rosy, though it ain't got no roses."
"So what's the big guy like?"
"Hmm?"
I pointed up.
Doug laughed. "You're too fat. He likes attractive believers, models and actors mostly."
"That so?"
"Yeah, rest get sent to purgatory 'till they buff up. Maybe get new faces."
"New faces?"
"'Thou shalt have impeccable bone structure,' is his 11th commandment."
"So that's where I'd go? If I went through with it?"
"'No fatties,' 12th commandment*.*"
"I thought he loved all his children."
"He created us in his image, obesity is sacrilegious."
"You saying I shouldn't do it, then? I have to keep on living?"
"At least till you've buffed up. Gotten a few surgeries, pectoral implants, Botox, maybe widen your eyes."
"I'm okay with how I look."
"Yeah, but HE isn't. Lose weight, better yourself, become strong and attractive. Then you can compare yourself to weaker, lesser people and feel satisfied and in control. The meaning of existence is moments of fleeting vanity, thank God."
Doug flew into the sky and left me to clean my thoughts.
Trashed morality. Burned away inner character and stomped on the ashes of experience. Disregarded justice. Embraced vanity, hedonism and improvement of self over the needs of others.
And life was easy.
I don’t see the point. It’s a bit sacrilegious in tone, and the narrator, God and Doug seem to agree that fat people are gross - that’s where I see the heart of it; trash-talking fat people and edgy blasphemy. I didn’t laugh, it was hard to read due to all of the flowers, I have no idea who any of the characters are - Doug and the narrator seem pretty much alike - there is one isolated paragraph where narrator tells me he’s suicidal, but I don’t get why (I don’t take for granted that life sucks), and it’s never mentioned again. The last two paragraphs seem about as random and pointless as the woman whose only characteristic and purpose is being fat. The language also feels forced and try-hard to me.
Also, my English probably isn’t perfect, but I think you missed a lot of commas.
I’m sorry if this doesn’t help you much. I just don’t see the point of it. Maybe it just wasn’t for me.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012
I admit I'm getting kinda annoyed by my first project and decided to ignore it for a few days.

I randomly dreamed up another idea yesterday, decided to write it, and I'm somehow already done and satisfied with the first pass. To me that's like winning the lottery. It's a far less convoluted idea than the other, and also far shorter. It's just under 1,400 words, which is above the 1k limit, but do you guys mind if I post it?

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW
Post it. As Erik Shawn-Bohner's dad irl, I can legally speak for him.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Martello posted:

Post it. As Erik Shawn-Bohner's dad irl, I can legally speak for him.

:confused:

Alright then:

quote:

“I’ve got a pretty strange story for ya guys, and this one’s real, I swear!” The rest of his drinking buddies at the table crowded in, eager for more stories to mock. All except one.

“Yea, that’s what Johnny here said before he started spouting bullshit like a fountain. How do we know you aint’ gonna screw with us too?” He leaned back in his chair with satisfaction. The storyteller slammed his hands on the table. “Because I got plenty of witnesses that musta seen exactly what I saw! Hell, there’s probably other people all over the place telling the exact same story.”

The naysayer mulled it over for a moment, then leaned back foreword. “Alright then, what kinda ghost story you got for us?”

Everyone here’s got such unrestrained accents. Do they even try to speak normally? From my vantage at the table just behind him I couldn’t see his face, but I imagined it was pretty flush with drink. I wondered how much of the story would actually be the truth. Hmm... I predict 30%.

“Alright, so I was just strolling down the street by Mac’s bakery, and I saw this thief grab a poor woman’s bag. It was broad daylight and in the middle of the street, the man’s got balls! Anyway, being the good samaritan I am, I chased after thief. He was bobbin’ n’ weavin’ through alleys and across streets.”

Ha! Plenty of bullshit already.

“All of a sudden, I get this urge. I get this feeling like I just saw something outa the corner of my eye. And so I look up to see what it was. I only saw it briefly, but I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

He paused a moment for dramatic effect. So very cliche. I took a swig of my drink.

“It was this shadowy figure, like a man’s figure, but it didn’t feel human. It was so strange, so inhuman, even I don’t know how to describe it.”

Hmph. As if you were a solid benchmark of literary prowess to begin with.

“He was completely still, just perched on the edge of a roof like... like a gargoyle. Yea, a gargoyle! I’m serious! But here’s the worst part: he was lookin’ right at me.” The customary sharp intake of breath circled around the table followed predictably by the customary looking around in wonder. And of course, don’t forget the naysayer’s customary naysaying. It’s a very important part of drunken table storytelling.

“Bah! At you? What in the hell would some demonic, supernatural being care about you for?”

The self proclaimed “good samaritan” shrugged and threw out his arms. “How would I know? All I know is that it had to be me he was lookin’ at. It couldn’t have been anyone else. The only other soul on that particular street was that thief, and the shadow man was definitely not lookin’ at him.” The table nodded at the soundness of that logic. The naysayer looked annoyed and ready to complain yet again. Goddamit man, can’t you just enjoy a good story? We’re getting to the most interesting bit too!

“Fine, fine, the demon was looking at you. So what did ya’ do, piss yourself and run off?”

“Even if I was a coward, I wouldn’t have gotten the chance. The moment I saw him, a light gust blew by, and he vanished. He just dissolved in the wind, blown away like dust. There isn’t any other way to explain it, I swear!”

Eh, close enough.

“So after the man disappeared, I was bewildered for a second, then I remembered I was chasin’ that thief an’ continued off afta him. An’ now, hours later, I still don’t know what to make of the shadow man. It was real quick, I tell ya, just a second after I looked up he was gone.” He leaned back, his story completed.

Then the table exploded with excited discussion. As expected, several of the drinking buddies said they’d also seen the shadow man, but the date, time, and location were all varied at the liar’s whim. However... it was possible that maybe, just maybe... But even if there were small needles of truth hidden in that haystack of conversation, I couldn’t say for sure that it was the truth.

The storyteller’s tale, on the other hand, was not nearly as tall as the others’.

“Hey,” I asked, leaning forward, “that was one hell of a story. Was any of that true?”

The storyteller spun in his seat to meet my inquiring gaze. “You bet your rear end it was! Um, well...” He leaned down, inviting me to come in close. I shuffled forward with my chair in tow and leaned in like a fellow conspirator, hiding our faces with my hat. “Maybe the bit with the thief was... a creative embellishment.”

We shared a hearty laugh while his drinking buddies badgered him to reveal what he said.

“By the way, where in the world did you get that hat?”

“Oh, this?” I said, looking at the hat I held in my hand. “It does look a bit... off, doesn’t it? It’s an odd fedora I saw at a shop somewhere during my travels abroad. I never thought it was all that odd, but that’s what people keep telling me. Do you like it?”

“Well, I don’t hate it, but like those people said there’s something odd about it that I just can’t put a finger on.” The front door chimed so I casually looked over. Then I balked. The woman that walked through was one I hoped never to be found by. I need to get out of here, quickly.

“Anyway, I’d better be off. I’ve got some business to attend to now.” The storyteller put up a hand before answering for his treasons to the naysayer. I quickly looked around for another exit and headed towards the first door I saw.

As I was about to pull the door shut behind me, I heard the storyteller say, “Wait a sec, isn’t that a closet that man just went in?” I smiled to myself for a moment as I closed the door to drown out the the ruckus of the pub.

-

“Wait a sec, isn’t that a closet that man just went in?”

“What man? I wasn’t payin’ attention,” someone replied.

“Y’know, the man I was just talking to? I swear that’s a closet he just walked into.”

“You feeding us more crap now?”

“No, really... Y’know what, I’m gonna go check it out.” He stood up and waited a moment for the buzz to clear, then stumbled over to the door the man had left through. As he put his hand on the handle, he heard a scolding bellow from behind him. He turned around to see the bartender approaching.

“Whadya think you’re doin’? That’s a closet you have no business bein’ in.”

“Well, I just saw a man go in, a customer I’d just talked to.”

“Did he say why he was goin’ in?”

“No, he just said he had some business to attend to and headed straight for this door.”

“Hmph. Well drag him out for me then, will ya’?”

The storyteller turned back towards the door as he responded. “I’d rather ask nicely.”

Or he would have if there was someone in there to ask. There were some brooms, some buckets, some mops, and varying amounts of other supplies, but not a hair of a man. He blinked a few times, then slapped himself, shook his head, slapped again, blinked some more, started muttering, slapped yet again, grabbed a broom, looked at the broom, and finally whacked himself with the boom, for good measure.

“Well, are ya’ dragin’ him out or what?”

“But there’s nobody here...”

“What was that?”

“There’s-” He paused. He thought he saw a flicker of darkness just outside the window and felt compelled to look out.

“Compelled to look...” His eyes widened in realization as he suddenly managed to connect the dots. It was the same feeling he’d had earlier that day. He jumped over to the window to get a good look at what was outside.

“What the hell are you still doing in there?”

The storyteller couldn’t decide whether to stare in wonder or horror, so his face contorted into something halfway. What he saw was a thick cloud of black dust, swirling in the middle of a desolate street. And as he watched, the black dust proceed to assemble itself into the shape of a man wearing a rather odd hat.

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






ViggyNash posted:

Yea, that’s what...
Hell, there’s probably...
Alright then, what kinda...
Alright, so I was ...
Anyway, being the good...
All of a sudden, I get ...
Goddamit man, can’t you ...
Fine, fine, the demon ...
An’ now, hours later...
Hey, I asked...
By the way, where in ...
Well, I don’t hate ...
Anyway, I’d better ...
Wait a sec, isn’t that ...
Y’know, the man I...
No, really... Y’know what, I’m gonna go ...
Well, I just saw ...
Hmph. Well drag him ...
Well, are ya’ dragin’ ...

Do you notice a pattern in your dialog? Putting all that stuff in doesn't make it seem more "natural," it makes it seem more unsure of itself and weird. It reads more like a script than a story. Just have your characters be sure of what they're saying. The meaning of what they're saying wouldn't be changed at all if you took those words out. There were a lot more in your story that were just simple answers or random stuff that didn't really matter at all in actually communicating their ideas.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

crabrock posted:

Do you notice a pattern in your dialog? Putting all that stuff in doesn't make it seem more "natural," it makes it seem more unsure of itself and weird. It reads more like a script than a story. Just have your characters be sure of what they're saying. The meaning of what they're saying wouldn't be changed at all if you took those words out. There were a lot more in your story that were just simple answers or random stuff that didn't really matter at all in actually communicating their ideas.

They're all drunk. I'm not sure what you expect.

In all seriousness I see what you mean in some of those instances. However, most of those fit the way I imagined the characters would speak. They aren't linguists, and even if they were, the majority are piss drunk. They're going to need transitional phrases to keep their thoughts in line.

On a different note, they aren't in there to convey the meaning the characters are trying to convey; they're in there to keep the persona going. If I were to take all of those out, they would sound almost like any random guy you meet on the street today. That's boring and doesn't fit the setting I was going for. Imagine the same dialog in a modern sports pub, then try it in what you imagine a turn of the century pub to be.

If it's something that simply annoys you then :shrug:.

Lucid Nonsense
Aug 6, 2009

Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here every day

ViggyNash posted:

They're all drunk. I'm not sure what you expect.

In all seriousness I see what you mean in some of those instances. However, most of those fit the way I imagined the characters would speak. They aren't linguists, and even if they were, the majority are piss drunk. They're going to need transitional phrases to keep their thoughts in line.

On a different note, they aren't in there to convey the meaning the characters are trying to convey; they're in there to keep the persona going. If I were to take all of those out, they would sound almost like any random guy you meet on the street today. That's boring and doesn't fit the setting I was going for. Imagine the same dialog in a modern sports pub, then try it in what you imagine a turn of the century pub to be.

If it's something that simply annoys you then :shrug:.

It seems like you're trying to get a breezy, semi-comedic feel going. Ever read any PG Wodehouse? It sounds like you're trying for something like that, but with a little sci-fi on top.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









ViggyNash posted:

They're all drunk. I'm not sure what you expect.

In all seriousness I see what you mean in some of those instances. However, most of those fit the way I imagined the characters would speak. They aren't linguists, and even if they were, the majority are piss drunk. They're going to need transitional phrases to keep their thoughts in line.

On a different note, they aren't in there to convey the meaning the characters are trying to convey; they're in there to keep the persona going. If I were to take all of those out, they would sound almost like any random guy you meet on the street today. That's boring and doesn't fit the setting I was going for. Imagine the same dialog in a modern sports pub, then try it in what you imagine a turn of the century pub to be.

If it's something that simply annoys you then :shrug:.

It's annoying because it's bad writing. People don't talk in books and stories like they talk in life.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
One problem I see is that it's very incongruent. You're giving him all these faux-colloquialisms, yet he's also using an at times very complex sentence structure and words like "embellishment" and "demon".
I also think the story-in-a-story isn't doing you any favours, especially not with all-direct speech. Fundamentally, the reader'll just want to know what's happening or what has happened, and all the tricks you're using to give the guy some earth and bring him down to it mostly stand in the way.

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW

ViggyNash posted:

They're all drunk. I'm not sure what you expect.

In all seriousness I see what you mean in some of those instances. However, most of those fit the way I imagined the characters would speak. They aren't linguists, and even if they were, the majority are piss drunk. They're going to need transitional phrases to keep their thoughts in line.

On a different note, they aren't in there to convey the meaning the characters are trying to convey; they're in there to keep the persona going. If I were to take all of those out, they would sound almost like any random guy you meet on the street today. That's boring and doesn't fit the setting I was going for. Imagine the same dialog in a modern sports pub, then try it in what you imagine a turn of the century pub to be.

If it's something that simply annoys you then :shrug:.

You're coming off as pretty :smug: and defensive here. You came to us asking for advice. Two of the better writers around here (sebmojo and crabrock) both told you your dialogue is weird and bad writing. And you can only say "well maybe you just don't like it get on my level :smug:"

I'm gonna jump on that bandwagon with seb and crab and tell you that the words you posted were mostly bad. You use about three times as many words as you need to. Your writing is to economy of prose as the Defenestration of Prague was to 15th-century Czech politicians. If you don't get that reference, it means you throw economy of prose out the window where it's smashed to bloody death on the pavement below.

Your attempt at breezy, comedic, conversational dialogue is not working, at all. Your story is not The Big Lebowski, the words on the page are not Jeff Bridges and John Goodman. Your narrator reminds me of the fleas I've been getting from my dog. He says "Hmph," "Eh," and oh-so-sarcasticgoony sentences like "As if you were a solid benchmark of literary prowess to begin with." The motherfucker even wears a fedora. :staredog: You made a superhero or a demon or something that's probably a self-insert, and you made him a goon. Then you wrote a story about him where another dude tells a story about him while the goondemon listens, and nothing actually happens. Not even in the story about the goondemon, which is told within the story you wrote.

Burn it down and start from the beginning. Practice writing clean, efficient prose and engaging dialogue. Stop loving around with wordplay and "breezy" wordcruft like what crabrock listed for you. Read a good book (not Dan Brown) and pay very close attention to what the dialogue and prose looks like.

Holy poo poo.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
7,000 B.C. - First signs of protowriting
~4,000-2,000 B.C. - Hieroglyphs, Chinese ideograms, and Cuneiform emerge
~1,000 A.D. - Chinese printing press
1450 A.D. - Gutenberg printing press
20th century A.D. - Computer-based writing emerges
August, 2013 A.D. - Viggynash invents the "fourth-person" perspective, first used in his now famous works of fiction: Leaning on Fences and Walls with His Arms and The Fedora Gargoyle Diaries

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
The story wasn't good but it's already a huge improvement on what came initially. I think he might be over-relying on CC, if he doesn't have the capacity to re-read his stuff and realise where it's falling down, then he needs to read a lot more, read critically, and buy some books on writing fiction. It's no good sitting like a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters until he comes up with something that we think is acceptable.

And to be honest, some of the advice has been a bit silly. I don't think quantity corresponds to quality, and posting a number of times or a number of stories in CC doesn't make you a good writer, just as posting a lot of criticism doesn't make you a good critic.

I fell prey to the trap of offering a re-write without an overabundance of critical analysis, but I think the opposite is also unhelpful. People are pulling him up on small little things that are indicative of but don't affect his overall failures as a creative writer. And making sarcastic, stupid posts isn't going to help anything - it's puerile, self-serving behaviour. Think what you will of his writing, and also of the perceived personality behind it, but keep it to yourself. Show some restraint, and show some maturity.

ViggyNash, you've written a number of versions of this, at least one of them drastically different. You've made some slight improvements, but you haven't shown a significant change and you've needed your hand held the entire way.

I think you'd be best served by stepping away from CC for a bit. Don't forget that the people who can write, tend to, and don't spend their days giving advice on internet forums.

Your prose and your posts suggest that you're uncertain as to what you actually want to write, and why. Before you sit down and put pen to paper, you need to have something to say, and a reason to say it. Telling a cool story isn't enough -- you need to defend your work, both to yourself and to the world. If it's not obvious from the content, you need to explain why the world and the reader will be better for having read what you've written, even if it's as simple as "it's a well-written, fun story that will make you feel like a vicarious action hero for a few hours", which is the Matthew Reilly defence (do you guys read him internationally?).

You're struggling with a smooth grasp of the English language and with the nature of good storytelling. If you really do feel like you have a story worth telling, focus on telling it. What you're using now, the approach you're taking now and the way in which you're writing it.. this isn't working.

Like I said earlier, I think you'd be best served by reading a lot more fiction, and now you want to write something yourself, you're in a better position to digest the story and style critically, rather than as a passive recipient of a good yarn.

If nothing's changing drastically, doing the same old thing (i.e. re-writing the same old story, or writing new stories) isn't going to effect a better result. All that will happen is that the people who are trying to help you are going to get exasperated and either give up or get mad. And then even people who haven't tried to help, but who have been reading your stories and giggling to themselves, are going to step up because it's easy pickings.

To repeat: You need to sit down and think about why you're writing. You need to think about yourself, what you want to say, and, above all, your engagement with the medium. This means looking at the medium as it exists and seeing how it works before jumping in.

To everyone else: If you were as good a writer as you think you are, you probably wouldn't be on CC hand-holding newbies and making fun of them when they trip. Keep some perspective.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
So now that the mood is all cozy ...
This is a snippet of something that'll hopefully turn out vaguely Coen-esque. Please tell me what's the main things I have to work on? My native language isn't English, which isn't meant as an excuse but simply so you know that telling me my main problem is not being a native speaker would be okay.


Nobody hears as much awful guitar playing as a guitar teacher, nobody meets as many crazy people as a shrink. Tyler’s was the only place in town to see worse dancing than the school gym during prom. Sometimes, when the last student had left, Ms. Tyler and the night-class instructor would impersonate a beginner displaying a unique, unknown form of talentlessness, such as this newcomer insisting on always wearing cargo pants and sandals who somehow managed to make his Hustle and Waltz look exactly alike, dancing either to a strange three-and-a-half-to-four non-rhythm that awoke in Ms. Tyler an urge to smash in his knees with a bottle of champagne.
“I think they’re just checking what we’ll put up with, you know?”, Joseph said after an impressive performance with his left leg dancing in 3/4 and his right one in 4/4. “Just loving with us. Just trying to ... ”
“I had a guy here with cerebral palsy and he got more done on his very first day than Cargo Pants after five weeks”, Ms. Tyler said. “Make me a martini, Joseph dear, will you please? Or rather two. One more class like this one and I may as well sign myself up for AA. Pour yourself one, too.”
They took the drinks outside, and when they had finished, spent some time watching the ice cubes melt in the warm summer night. Then, Ms. Tyler told Joseph how she wanted to rob Komaki Weizbaum.

”You’re beautiful when you’re confused”, Ms. Tyler said. Which, she added mentally, is mostly.
Joseph, eyes closed, was vividly massaging his nasal bridge. ”So we sell her house?”
Ms. Tyler nodded.
”Cause she’s trying to get rid of it anyways?”
Another nod.
”So why’s it theft?”
Ms. Tyler sighed, got up and headed for the bar. She returned with two olives and the bottle of gin.
He’s adorable, she thought while explaining to him again what she’d learned last week after the Mambo class, sharing a glass of gin with Komaki Weizbaum.
She was a second generation Korean immigrant, married young, husband a heir to a dying family conglomerate, but totally uninterested in it - caring about nothing but surfing and cooking. So Komaki decided to take care of business, and found herself quite amazing at it, quickly turning it into a highly profitable endeavour, and herself into the richest woman in the small town.
Then manly, loud, chubby Joel Weizbaum noticed after 20 years that marriage wasn’t his thing but rather, men were, and left for Italy, practically throwing his heirloom onto Komaki in return for a small private aliment. Now Mrs. Weizbaum had spent the last two years living alone in the gigantic mansion all by herself. Twice a week two Mexicans would come over to clean up, and that was it - half of the time she was on business trips anyway. And because there was no reason for a 40-year old, separated, reasonable 100-pound woman living on tea crumpets and the thrill of accounting to own a house the size of a Walmart, she decided to sell it off. It was set at five and a half million.
”So that’s what she’s told me. Now comes the exciting part.”
Joseph didn’t look excited.
”Next week, she’ll be out of town”, Ms. Tyler continued. Cut some deal in Detroit. That’s when we’re moving in.”
When she was done, Ms. Tyler still wasn’t sure he had understood the plan quite yet, so she mentioned the part about the millions again. The problem was that it didn’t seem to connect with Joseph - as if he was lacking the imagination of himself as a rich guy.
Well, maybe that’s exactly the qualities a man needs to dance a Cha cha cha that will make nuns cry and help me commit a crime, she thought, and when she arose to lock up, the room, held back by all the gin, needed a moment to catch up with her, and she hoped she wasn’t making a terrible mistake.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Okay we are kind of being dicks. With that said, a lot of us offered crits to several of his drafts and were actually trying to help him improve. I think I crit every draft of his first story with constructive advice.

Responding to people taking time out to help you with: "You just don't understand what I was going for," is really lame. I agree his second thing was an improvement over his first, but it did annoy me that he still stuck wtih a very goofy and non-conventional perspective instead of writing a straight-up story.

I don't know if he needs to step away from CC, but he does need to learn to take criticism. If everyone is generally agreeing that something I write is not working, I re-evaluate it after a day or so with fresh eyes and usually I will agree with the criticism that I received. I will go back and fix and improve the errors that I made. If I look again after a day and strongly disagree with the criticism, I may ask the person for elaboration, but I won't just dismiss someone because they "don't get it."

If you just get extremely defensive and don't improve, then why even bother?

I understand it can be frustrating to post a new thing that you worked on and still get negative feedback, but when you are first trying a new thing, You really shouldn't expect anything beyond: You are improving, but this is still bad.

angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Aug 13, 2013

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

To everyone else: If you were as good a writer as you think you are, you probably wouldn't be on CC hand-holding newbies and making fun of them when they trip. Keep some perspective.

So...are you the highly successful good writer or is it somebody else?

Yes it's best for this to just be a hugbox and we can all talk about how we're struggling writers together and be nice to people :emo:

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
ViggyNash is definitely not a sympathetic character in the CC narrative, but he's also not a villain. I consider him as someone who's trying hard, doesn't understand why he's failing, and is getting just as frustrated as his attempted tutors.

I'm concerned with the fact that he's had so much advice and has actually tried to employ it and has come back each time with a story that is still fundamentally broken as literature. I think for his own sanity, and for the patience of everybody here, he should really take a step back to see how he's interacting with the medium.

For example, I can't sing. I know this. I love music, but I can't make my voice work that way. I could probably, with lessons and practice, be able to function in a choir. If it were really important to me, I would spend that time quietly, on my own time, practicing until I got better - I'd never be Pavarotti, but I'd be passable, and that'd probably be significant to me. But if I were tone deaf, and unable to determine that my singing voice sounds awful to everyone else, and variations in pitch etc. went unnoticed by me, how do you teach that? It's unfeasible to teach someone what good writing is through a process of exclusion. You can recommend techniques, and point out failures that their own perspective might have missed, but at a fundamental level a writer needs to understand what good writing is and when something is working or not working.

At this stage, I haven't seen that he has that perception, and I'd be wary of monopolising the thread and exhausting all of the well-meaning posters here in order that someone might rote-learn writing through trial and error. You help someone hone their skill and provide a perspective they might not have, you don't write their story for them.

And at the end of the day, even if someone is being sarcastic and abrasive, it demeans ourselves and the spirit of the forum to succumb to mockery.

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING

Martello posted:

So...are you the highly successful good writer or is it somebody else?

Yes it's best for this to just be a hugbox and we can all talk about how we're struggling writers together and be nice to people :emo:

I'm saying some people here seem to have an opinion of themselves and their talent that might warrant a reference to big fish in little ponds.

And who said anything about a hugbox? I'm pointing out that acting like children will turn this into a playground that keeps adults away. Your choice.

Echo Cian
Jun 16, 2011

How about we bring this back to the point before you all get at each others' throats, eh?

sebmojo posted:

People don't talk in books and stories like they talk in life.

Martello posted:

Read a good book (not Dan Brown) and pay very close attention to what the dialogue and prose looks like.

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

I think you'd be best served by reading a lot more fiction, and now you want to write something yourself, you're in a better position to digest the story and style critically, rather than as a passive recipient of a good yarn.

In short:

Read more and pay attention to what you're reading. If something stands out that you really like, or that grabs you and makes you keep reading, figure out why you like it. Likewise if you don't like something, figure out why it didn't work for you.

And maybe look up some good, funny negative reviews of bad books. Sometimes it's easier to learn what not to do than what to do. If nothing else, it's entertaining.

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






ViggyNash posted:

they would sound almost like any random guy you meet on the street today. That's boring

If it's something that simply annoys you then :shrug:.

As it is now they sound like an repertory theater on opening night of romeo and juliet. They don't sound drunk at all, or like characters even. They sound like a young writer trying to write "naturally" by mimicking what he hears any random guy saying. The point is, readers don't need that stuff. It doesn't preserve anything about persona (what does that even mean?). They're mostly invisible words that don't need to be there, because they add nothing to the dialog other than to detract from the flow of the story. They're literally a "wait a second," that in real speech is useful, but in narrative, is jarring.

Here's a quick rewrite of how you can write without those, and actually achieve MORE realistic characters (because they'll be more believable if the person isn't constantly being pulled out of the story, and will pay more attention to what they have to say):

quote:

I leaned in close, almost tipping too far forward. "That was one hell of a story," I said. "Was any of that true?”

The storyteller spun in his seat to meet my stare and steadied himself from the dizziness that ensued. “What have I ever done to earn your doubt?” he asked with a wink. I leaned in closer so that I could feel the heat coming off of his red face. I hid our faces behind a hat.

"Don't make me hit you," I said.

His head jerked as he fought to stay sitting upright. He smacked his lips a few times before speaking: “Maybe I exaggerated a little bit. Or a lot. The bit with the thief was mostly true.”

I sat back up and took another drink from the bottle while he laughed.

"What'd he tell you?" asked one of his drinking buddies.

"And where in the world did you get that hat?" said another, spilling beer down his shirt as he tried to take a sip.

“This weird thing?” I said as I studied the hat. “There is something not quite right about it. I picked it up in my travels. Don't remember where." France, Germany, Italy. Who knew anymore. "Did you want to buy it?" I said.

“I don't want to buy no crusty old hat. It's just strange. It's giving me the creeps.” The front door chimed and we all forgot about the hat and looked over. Then I almost fell out of my chair again, and this time not because I was drunk. The woman that walked through was one I hoped never to be found by. I looked for the nearest exit.

“I’ve got some business to attend to, suddenly.”

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

To everyone else: If you were as good a writer as you think you are, you probably wouldn't be on CC hand-holding newbies and making fun of them when they trip. Keep some perspective.

'Go away and come back when you're a better writer' is not constructive advice. And 'writer' is meaningless anyway unless you're filing your tax return. There are only words, and they are good, or bad, and can be critiqued as such.

quote:

And at the end of the day, even if someone is being sarcastic and abrasive, it demeans ourselves and the spirit of the forum to succumb to mockery.

Thank you Somethingawful.com forums poster Sulla-Marius 88.

Less abrasively, Martello's point about the hugbox approach being damaging to writing is spot on. Vigorous constructive criticism makes art better. And if you can't take it then you will not improve.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Aug 13, 2013

Jeza
Feb 13, 2011

The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Cervid posted:

Hey, sebmojo. I am taking all your criticisms into account because I know I have a lot to learn as a writer. The following is me trying to answer your questions, not dispute your judgement. If you or anyone else would like to show me how to get these points across effectively, I am all ears.

Well, I meant the implication to be that the sailors knew they were all marked men and would die if they told the story to anybody because either :devil: or :cthulhu:. The reader can decide for themselves. That's why they acted weird but said nothing to the protagonist and that's why the protagonist was claimed when he did tell. His desperate scramble to religion was his way of fending off those feelings of being the walking damned that the others simply surrendered to.

As for the beginning, I tried to build it up and make you curious about my protagonist: why does this guy look so old at 34? Why he does he pray all the time and throw dishes at friends he doesn't want to see, or else, things that he thinks aren't really his friends? How did he die and why? A little character investment and suspense. I just assumed that the first few paragraphs would fall into place at the end.

The narrator is there because everybody in the town wonders about this guy. This person is a local who wanted to know his story and figured out a way to do it. They tell everybody else word for word, including the reader.

But if I failed to make all of the above clear, then yes, I deserved to lose. Absolutely. I will work on making myself clearer in the future.

I was going for more of an atmospheric horror rather than a graphic one. I must have misunderstood what was expected and if that's the case, I also deserved to lose for that too.


As far as the ed note thing, unterrifyingness of eels, formatting, misuse of barracks, and not quite hitting the Lovecraft mark, I agree totally. But drat, do I love me some Lovecraft. Had to try.


Sebmojo is a busy kiwi and has many crits. Here I will shine some light on what you think, what he said and what you wrote.


You thought: It was heavily implied that to speak of the demonic ship would mean doom for the teller in your opening.

He said: Your entire opener was wiffle.

You wrote: A long, overwrought opening. You do not effectively establish this implication because there is no concrete or subtle allusion to the fear of reprisal. Our man Jan's reticence is far more plausibly attributed to having witnessed something so horrible it has mentally scarred him. He does not want to talk about it, like 'Nam vets don't want to talk about it. Readers are loathe to go back and reconsider past matters, especially in a short story. First impressions are your last impressions - we only hear about the reprisals in the last few lines as a mysterious occurrence which is just as easily thought of as suicide driven by the haunting horrors he has witnessed.




You thought: You established shipmates acting in a disconcerting and elusive manner which would make the reader suspicious. Also that he ran to religion as a means of resistance to their simple giving in to demonic powers.

He said: Wha? Who?

You wrote: A middle section without any crew to speak of. Beyond the captain who is neither seen nor described and the faceless deckhands (oh, how could I forget 'a pale, thin hand'!). This is the section where you build up your desired 'atmosphere'. All that comes of it is confusion. You pique interest, you build tension, you have creepy pay-off - Horror in a nutshell. You have some form of hook and some form of pay-off but both are ruined by the sandwich filler. Really, your central section is a complete write off. What wager? Why all the saintly foreshadowing that leads nowhere? From boarding till the end of the voyage is the shortest part of your story while in reality it IS your story. The rest is just winding up and winding down. The balance, therefore, is broken.

The religion thing is also another case of Occam's razor. Any normal reader will assume he sought refuge in religion as solace from his horrifying experience, as yet unrecounted in the prose. Not whatever you hoped.




You thought: Your opening paragraphs established interest and developed Jan's character.

He said: Wiffle.

You wrote: Wiffle. You do sort of achieve what you want, but you achieve it in an affected and circuitous manner. It does not take a quarter of your story to establish a prematurely aged, reclusive and God-fearing man with a story to tell. Speculation on whether he might have had a wife, what his friends wondered, what I, as a reader, may or may not have guessed, his cluttered home etc. are irrelevant.




You thought: The narrator was a useful addition and rooted the plot in a town's curiosity about this old man.

He said: If he's just a conduit, cut him and tell the story directly.

You wrote: A first person narration that in turn gives another person's first person narration, for no benefit to the story whatsoever. The narrator is stilted and roundabout in his mannerisms, to an extent that invites comparisons to parody. Without any development to the narrator as a character beyond that he is a nosy priest, we receive the bulk of the story as reported speech in the guise of direct speech in the past tense. It is meaningless. Also, none of town seems to come into the plot at all, or at least in the way you seem to think it does, so the narrator's motivations are opaque.

I would have rather seen the opening and conversation occur in the present, where you are freer from the temptation to add things like editor's notes or musings on Jan looking back. You can then conclude in the past tense if you so desire.




You thought: You shot for atmospheric horror when the prompt was directed towards graphic horror, and this was a mistake on your part.

He said: Not much, but you do kind of write a Lovecraftian atmosphere.

You wrote: Some atmospheric horror, with problems as outlined above. Your choice was not wrong and the brief did not point towards graphic horror. The reason many chose to do so is innate writer's instinct for writing along the path of least resistance. 1200 words is not many words, and atmospheric horror requires suspense and tension building - which 1200 does not well afford to any but the most clinically precise and clear writers. You took on a sheer mountain without climbing tools. You didn't make it, but it doesn't matter. You lost very little other than your time and some pride you didn't need and have hopefully gained some insight from what I and others have written.




If all we wrote was useless, at least take away some super-simple freebie tips:

Never use ellipses in a doomed attempt to create dramatic timing. It always looks amateur and never actually works.

Think about your the basic structure of hook, tension, pay-off.

Wait a day after writing and then come back with less rose-tinted eyes. Cut what adds nothing - if the best you can say about a sentence or clause is a weak 'it kind of adds flavour', get rid of it.

Avoid melodrama (I'm looking at you, final sentence.) If something is dramatic, it will speak for itself. Don't feel the need to end a story on a deep, resounding or philosophical note. Nine times out of ten, cutting off closer to the end of the action will serve you better than piling on more post-scriptums that tie up loose ends.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Yep.

Don't be discouraged - write again, write better.

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




Man Cervid. Jeza and sebmojo gave you fuckin baller rear end crits. Just keep on writing, keep on improving. No one was ever born amazing at something. This ain't no anime.

Erogenous Beef
Dec 20, 2006

i know the filthy secrets of your heart

Jeza posted:

good advice

One more thing, not just for Cervid, but for most folks - if you feel that the critiquer didn't understand something in your story which was intended to have a certain effect, the problem is often not the reviewer, but you. Yes, it is possible for Lazy Reader Syndrome to kick in and for people to miss important details. However, if you want to improve, you need to first point the finger of blame at yourself; try to recognize and fix your own deficiencies before assuming the reader is stupid.

Your job, rule one, is to communicate your story clearly. If you find yourself having to explain plot points, character actions, etc., then you have failed at this and you should focus on improving your next piece's clarity.

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






I am doing the WriteAboutDragons thingy, and Sanderson said something I liked. Paraphrased: Don't explain your stories, because all you do is get really good at explaining them, and not better at writing them so people can understand them.

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




I have a question about tenses, specifically how I spectacularly failed in their proper usage of them in my last story. I'm a bit confused because I was going for past tense, yet I was told in a few instances that I needed present tense.

Help :(

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






Wrong tenses are one of those things that sneak in sometimes, and you're supposed to catch in editing. I did a quick read through and made some comments.

I think you would have been better served making this entire thing past tense. The present tense doesn't do anything to add to the tension for me, since it's so randomly inserted.

______

Today, I'm going to die. I'm certain of it. Here you are in present tense, predicting the future. Ok. Something happened to me today, like an omen of sorts. Now you're telling us what happened to make you feel this way. This is okIt's because of what I did when I was younger and she's come back for revenge. now you're in the present talking about even futher back in time, so I don't know wtf this is. stylistically you've gone through 3 tenses in the opening paragraph you could have done it in one. "I knew I was going to die. It was because of something I did. I thought about the threats she made." This whole opening paragraph is a weird mix of tenses and it's a little confusing trying to classify all of them. Just stay consistent. Use present tense if you want to be in the here and now, don't use it just to talk about the past.

It happened decades ago, before I took office in the House of Representatives, yet I have not forgotten. She never allowed me to forget. Her face was deformed, with broken bones and multiple wounds. I saw that she recognized me. She was a slave girl I knew when I was growing up. There was a brief hope that I would step in and put a stop to the men that were despoiling her. I saw it on her face.

“She was property.” since they'd be speaking in their present, and you're quoting them, this should be "she IS property" they told me. That was the only justification I needed to commit my horrible act. I saw her hope drained from her face as I removed my coat.

She died that night.

As the years rolled by, I began to see her with more regularity. Her ghastly face, worn and lifeless, flickered over the faces of Negro women. I stopped, my heart would beat high in my throat as my panic immobilized me. She always disappeared as soon as I noticed her and left me confused and nervous.

It has been worse as of late. I see her more and more.now we're in the present tense again. still ok. you're just jumping around a lot No longer constrained to the faces of women, she is now constantly at the periphery of my vision. There are these whispers that only occurred when there is no one to voice them. I strained to understand, but the more I focused, the quieter they became. I wished it were the stresses of being this country's leader during a time of civil war, because the alternative was that I had truly gone mad. Ok so now you're talking in the past tense, although I think this should be in the present. This is stuff you're still facing, still dealing with. You're still the president and still haunted.

This morning is the worst it has ever been. here you say we're still in the morning and it is bad, but then directly after you put us into the past again. these should have been consistent. My meeting with General Grant had me in great distress. His voice came out of her mouth. I shut my eyes, yet behind my veil, she floated in the darkness.

Grant's hand on my shoulder startled me back into reality. “Are you feeling alright, Abraham?”

I almost yelled when I opened my eyes to the bottomless black pits that somehow stared at me. “It's nothing, really!” I said as I turned away.

As I was driven home, every person I saw carried the woman's grotesque visage. I groaned in misery and I shrank back into my seat. The whispers started again – a cacophony of sinister voices accosted my senses like nails across a chalkboard. I mashed my palms uselessly against my ears.

I don't know how much time passed, but the voices abruptly stopped. I heard my name being called out as if from a distance. When I opened my eyes, my wife's concerned face looked down at me. My body relaxed as my wife looked like my wife. “Mary...” I said, relieved.

I sat in our living room and sipped a cup of tea. My wife's presence somehow acted as a ward against the woman who haunted me. I did not know how, nor did I question it. I welcomed the temporary peace.

“Are you feeling up to watching the play tonight?” Mary asked. She brought her cup to her lips and blew on it.

I pursed my lips. She had been looking forward to this play for weeks now, yet something about this situation filled me with dread. I needed to keep her close to me. It's been hours since I've last seen the tell tale sight of my grizzly demon and it's all because she's been nearby.random switch to present tense I forced a convincing smile. “Of course.”

The play itself was humorous. I didn't realize how much I needed this. saying "this" makes it present tense. like you're actually there. say "it" I turned to my wife to say something and the ghastly visage was back. This didn't make sense!again, jumping tenses My head snapped back towards the play. All the actors looked like her. The whispers were back, louder than ever. I finally understood what they were saying. They said, “It's time for you to die.”

A loud shot rang out. I felt an overwhelming pain in the back of my head – icy tendrils snaking its way through my brain, and then a merciful nothing.you slip into a present tense at the very end here with "snaking its way," should have gone with "snaked their way" (although that is awkward)

crabrock fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Aug 15, 2013

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




Do you guys have a checklist or ritual you go through when editing to make sure everything is correct? I've always had issues with tenses. Lately I've been catching most of my errors while editing, but this past week, well, I lacked focus and a lot of things slipped through. I feel it could have been avoided if I had a list or ritual or something.

I think my brain is broken.

Mercedes fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Aug 15, 2013

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
There is a reason every TD judge has been telling you (you specifically) to stick to third or first-person past until you get the hang of it. You have been trying to do cute tenses and POVs since you first came to the TD and it has been tripping you up. The best thing you can do is to just stick with past tense third or first-person so you don't have to think about it.

The only tricky thing within that is you may need to go to pluperfect sometimes (I had seen, I had thought) to refer to something that happened further in the past.

When you are planning out your story, if at all possible to cut out any elements that would require tense, POV, or tone shifts, try to cut them out and tell a straightforward story.

Cervid
Jul 18, 2013

THUNDERDOME LOSER
To answer these questions:

Jeza posted:

What wager? Why all the saintly foreshadowing that leads nowhere?

The wager was between the Governor of Java and the captain. The basic event actually happened in 1678: the captain got to Java in three months with the governor's letters and it was a huge deal because that was a really short amount of time. Whether or not it was an actual wager, I don't know, but I had to include that event or it would not have been history. I just turned it into a wager because that's the easiest reason for everything to center around that ship. It was mentioned in the paragraph with the letters.

The saint part was because they weren't taking part in the usual rowdy sailor behavior and always looking up. Then he says "or maybe they were doing that because they're people who know they've incurred the wrath of God", which was in the Sodom and Gomorrah reference right after.

But hey, if it was done poorly, then I accept that criticism. If a bunch of people are saying it sucked, then it must have sucked. I'll get back on that pony and try again. Thank you for your inputs, Jeza, Seb, Mercedes, and Erogenous Beef. I will definitely take them into consideration. :)

Erogenous Beef
Dec 20, 2006

i know the filthy secrets of your heart

Mercedes posted:

Do you guys have a checklist or ritual you go through when editing to make sure everything is correct? I've always had issues with tenses. Lately I've been catching most of my errors while editing, but this past week, well, I lacked focus and a lot of things slipped through. I feel it could have been avoided if I had a list or ritual or something.

I think my brain is broken.

Good grammar, and thereby good tense usage, is a habit. You will start out doing it poorly. Save your piece and read it again, slowly, a day or two later. Read it in a different medium than it was written. Do not stop and edit - just read and maybe jot down some notes.

The point is to get you into the mind of a reader, as opposed to a writer - read as if you were reading your piece for the first time. Get bothered by your misspellings, grammar mistakes, poor tense usages. If you can recognize them as a reader, then try to enter the reader's mindset before proofing your stuff.

After getting some practice with correcting your own prose, you should start making fewer errors in drafting. Even if not, you'll have enough practice editing to catch them.

My "ritual" involves exporting my work from my composition software into another format, which presents it in a different font and spacing scheme. This helps me read it with a fresher mindset. Then I re-read it again after pasting it into SA, using the preview-reply function. Preview has saved me from barbarous misspellings several times.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Cervid posted:

To answer these questions:


The wager was between the Governor of Java and the captain. The basic event actually happened in 1678: the captain got to Java in three months with the governor's letters and it was a huge deal because that was a really short amount of time. Whether or not it was an actual wager, I don't know, but I had to include that event or it would not have been history. I just turned it into a wager because that's the easiest reason for everything to center around that ship. It was mentioned in the paragraph with the letters.

The saint part was because they weren't taking part in the usual rowdy sailor behavior and always looking up. Then he says "or maybe they were doing that because they're people who know they've incurred the wrath of God", which was in the Sodom and Gomorrah reference right after.

But hey, if it was done poorly, then I accept that criticism. If a bunch of people are saying it sucked, then it must have sucked. I'll get back on that pony and try again. Thank you for your inputs, Jeza, Seb, Mercedes, and Erogenous Beef. I will definitely take them into consideration. :)

Cool. I look forward to your next one :) If you can win a round I'll buy you a new avatar.

Tonsured
Jan 14, 2005

I came across mention of a Gnostic codex called The Unreal God and the Aspects of His Nonexistent Universe, an idea which reduced me to helpless laughter. What kind of person would write about something that he knows doesn't exist, and how can something that doesn't exist have aspects?

Cingulate posted:

Tonsured, I must admit I may not be the best person to critique this - it didn’t really connect with me and I mostly chose yours because it was the most recent text nobody else had already critiqued better than I could.

I don’t see the point. It’s a bit sacrilegious in tone, and the narrator, God and Doug seem to agree that fat people are gross - that’s where I see the heart of it; trash-talking fat people and edgy blasphemy. I didn’t laugh, it was hard to read due to all of the flowers, I have no idea who any of the characters are - Doug and the narrator seem pretty much alike - there is one isolated paragraph where narrator tells me he’s suicidal, but I don’t get why (I don’t take for granted that life sucks), and it’s never mentioned again. The last two paragraphs seem about as random and pointless as the woman whose only characteristic and purpose is being fat. The language also feels forced and try-hard to me.
Also, my English probably isn’t perfect, but I think you missed a lot of commas.
I’m sorry if this doesn’t help you much. I just don’t see the point of it. Maybe it just wasn’t for me.

I appreciate your eyes and thoughts on this, the point of this story was to reject it. The world of the narrator is superficial and vain and these traits are the only active impetuses in his life, so inundated is he that even his supernatural epiphanies lack depth. The discord is supposed contrast with what the reader holds dear, your inability to connect with it might be construed as a success. My motivation for this story was to comment on the superficial nature of the image of God organized religion instills in its modern day followers. Specifically, The projection of an idealized God utilized for simplistic comparison judgments as a world view is an easy but superficial way to live. I may have failed in conveying this notion clearly.
Edit: Also I stand proudly by my childish humor.

Tonsured fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Aug 20, 2013

CancerCakes
Jan 10, 2006

Here is my bit from the glorious thunderdome:

Let Rushing Dogs Lie (1098 words)

“You want us to import dogs.”

Comrade Mayor Anatoly frowned at me. The other members of the town committee began to shout, at me and at each other.

“Yes,” I replied, “I am so greatly talented that I have caught every feral dog in the town. It would be a crime to let my prodigious talent to go waste.”

The Comrade Mayor struck the table, silencing the idiot committee members as they questioned my skills.

“Alexei my brother, your talent is legendary,” said Anatoly, “but I can see that the other, less learned, members of the committee are not convinced.”

I looked around. There was fat Victor, spotty Boris and ugly Mikhail. Skeletal Pavel and Pytor, who was more scab than skin. Dmitry’s boils were effervescing in a particularly foul manner. Each of these unfortunate men gaped at me as I stood before them, my bronze skin shining in the sun.

A slow stream of drool flowed from the side of Victor’s slack mouth. It was clear they could not comprehend the brilliance of my idea.

Your uncle Anatoly is a wise man, my son. He has guided our town of Rassgart through many hardships, and I have always been by his side. I could not say that I have been instrumental in his success, but he has always received advice from his older brother. So it was shocking that at this point, when I’m sure you would expect Anatoly to come to my aid in front of these imbeciles (as he has before), he did not tell the committee that I was correct.

It was clear that I would have to tell them a story of my dog catching prowess.

“I shall tell you a story of my dog catching prowess!” I said, leaping onto the table in a single bound. “Have I ever told you learned men of the Matryoshka Dogs?”

Now my boy, you must always remember that men like to be flattered. They like to think that they are somehow greater than they truly are, that their station is somehow higher than it is. Of course in this most excellent society which Stalin has forged for us we are all equal. Even so if you wish to convince a man of your point of view it does no harm to remind him what an excellent and clever man he is.

“The Matryoshka Dogs,” I cried (Pavel had fallen asleep since my leap: his age makes him very frail, he awoke with a wheeze), “were, in actuality only one dog, at the start. A young comrade had begged me to visit her, to save her from a terrible dog that terrorized her and her tiny babushka.

“When I arrived the grandmother was visiting the market, and the beautiful Lilya invited me inside.”

Her large blue eyes and blonde hair captivated me, and I could tell that she admired my strong outdoorsman’s body. Of course since your mother left us I have barely looked at a woman, but it is not a crime to notice these things.

“Suddenly we heard a fantastic roar. There, at the threshold of the door, a gigantic hound crouched, ready to strike. Its head was the size of a horse's, with horrible teeth it swung left and right, and as it scraped at the flags sparks were sent flying.”

When the committee heard this they shrunk back in fear; they were a cowardly lot. Indeed Dmitry screwed his eyes shut, causing one of his boils to burst allowing stinking pus to issue forth, and reminding me of the hound’s breath.

“The hound’s breath,” I whispered, drawing them towards me in excitement and fear “smelt like a capitalist’s rotting morality!” They muttered, as we all know capitalists stink due to the evils they beset upon the proletariat.

“I was not discouraged, and leapt at the beast, striking it on the nose. Faced with such a superior manner of man the monster realised the futility of fighting, and ran, and I gave chase. I soon caught it, leaping upon it and wrestling it, subduing it and mastering it.” I grasped Boris by the shoulders, trying to impress upon him the seriousness of the situation.

“No sooner had I tied up the beast a horrible and terrible occurrence occurred.” I spun around and pointed at Pytor as one of his scabs drifted to the table.

“The beast shed its skin. If left its bindings behind, and it leapt away.”

The idiots of the committee, with their small minds, could not comprehend that a dog could shed its skin as readily as a snake, but it is true. They snorted and snickered, like pigs at trough, but I was resolute before them.

“It was then that I realised I was in pursuit of the Matryoshka dog. It is well known among those of my esteemed profession that these terrible beasts are among us, and only one such as I could ever hope to capture it.”

I continued with the tale as the committee muttered.

“I leapt after the monster, no longer the size of a horse, merely a mule of a dog. It would be no match for my legendary strength. It led me on a chase through the town, past the old men who drink vodka on their stools. They might have thought I was drunk as well: as as I chased the damned dog the size of a mule I screamed at it, to scare it into making a wrong turn, some mistake that would allow me to capture it.

“With a superhuman stretch I grasped the dog by its hind leg, but again the skin and fur came away in my hand. The dog that raced away before me was the size of a calf.

“I chased the hound through the day, then through the night. I pursued it through the rain, then the blistering heat of summer. It became steadily smaller, once it resembled a pig, a cat, a mouse.

The committee were enthralled, their mouths agape, a small stream of drool flowed from Victor’s slack mouth. But their amazement was further increased when I opened my palm. There in my hand was the Matryoshka dog, the size of a bluefly. And this, my dear boy, is when your uncle, who had given me my job as a dog catcher, trusting me when others had thought I was but a drunk, betrayed me.

“Alexei,” said Anatoly, that snake, “that is fly.”

And that, my son, is why I have lost my job as the dog catcher of Rassgart.

---------------------

So the point is this - alexei is a drunken fool, who has been given the titular role of dogcatcher by his nepotistic brother, to the chagrin of the other committee members. He continues to be a drunken fool, but now chases literally any animal (horse, mule, pig, cat etc) through the town, failing to catch anything, they all escape. Finally he is hauled up infront of the committee and promptly fired. The story is his embellishment filled explanation to his son, but much of what he *said* he said in the meeting is true, most other things are false.

How do I get the story within a story across better?

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




Let the reader know that Alexei is actually telling someone this story from the very beginning. That was actually my only complaint about the story. I didn't actually realize that Alexei was telling someone this story until the story was almost finished.

I made the same mistake awhile ago in one of my submissions. It didn't really change it for the better.

M. Propagandalf
Aug 9, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Lessons to take from the last Thunderdome battle: Writing dialogue with crowds


One of the prominent flaws in my last submission was assigning names to figures that are essentially props. There are only two characters (Tobias and Mallory) that matter in this piece, everyone else is there to enhance their conflict.

I thought about, but rejected the idea of keeping the prop figures nameless (ex. "someone from the fellowship cried..." "another person said...") which seemed even more awkward. I thought I could highlight who mattered and who didn't via syllables - everyone with a monosyllablic name is essentially a prop. The consensus is this doesn't work either.

The solution seems to be narrowed to minimizing the number of named figures so the speaking roles are less spread out. For this piece, I wanted to convey a sense of a crowd with group participation, even if it means a character to line ratio of 1:1. What would be an effective way to do this without minimizing numbers?

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Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




If it means anything to you, the amount of characters in your story were not a distraction. You got the idea of a crowd arguing with each other across.

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