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I don't have much to add that hasn't already been mentioned, but I wanted to come back to this in particular:Blarggy posted:This scene was originally intended to be about twice or three times as long, as the first chapter in the book it would set the stage, the main character, etc, but not develop any characterization until he woke up later on. If I pick up a book and the entire first chapter contains no characterization, I'm putting that book down and never touching it again. The setting can be revealed throughout the story, but the character is going to be what gets the reader invested in the first place. I couldn't care less what the plot and setting are about if you can't make me care about the characters, and the first chapter is the first thing a reader will see when they pick up the book. It's fine to write whatever garbage you want for scene-setting in a first draft, but if it's not advancing character or action, throw it out before the second. Those are your hooks. Remember them. Martello already gave some good advice for your wordiness problem but I'd go farther than that, even - the first three paragraphs can be chopped or condensed to one line, the girl can be summed up in a couple sentences instead of paragraphs, and the explosion is what should matter. You also need to inject some personality in there. Giving his impressions of her beyond noticing how beautiful she is - which still sounds like the narrator talking, not the protag - would go a long way there. And this: quote:His brain did not have time to process exactly what was going on, other than a resounding roaring noise, and that the entire front of the city hall building, thick concrete pillars, stone floors and brick pavers, were now shattering like so much glass and flying through the air, mostly in his direction. That's sure processing a lot for not being able to process what's happening. quote:He didn't know what was going on, except for exactly what was going on, in detail, mostly in his direction. The guy's not going to be admiring how every little physical detail is happening, he's going to be freaking out because a building just exploded in front of him what the hell. Also get rid of that last clause. That's terrible. "He didn't have time to process it; in an instant the building burst toward him, noise and glass and concrete. He desperately flung his arms up but it wouldn't be enough..." Not great, but I hope you get the idea. Try writing using the least words possible instead of the most for a while. It's fun, I promise. *** Great Rumbler posted:From Between Sand and Sky [1000 words]: For the most part I like this. I'm already interested in what's going on, possibly because I'm a bit of a sucker for stories with displaced princes.  That said, the description of the sandstorm is very, uh, dry. A lot of short sentences, could be condensed down, made pithier. By contrast, later on there are a lot of compound sentences that form a repetitive flow that might be better broken up differently. Vary your sentence length and structure. I'd also suggest trying to avoid "had" and "then" when possible; they're often a sign of excess wordiness. For example: quote:He'd been careless, had taken too long to find a suitable spot to erect his shelter, and had underestimated the power of this particular storm. Sounds a bit run-on and disordered. Perhaps: quote:He'd been careless. He'd underestimated this storm, taken too long to find a suitable spot to erect his shelter. Also: quote:With haste, he crawled through the opening, pulling his pack in behind him. The comma there breaks it up, makes the mind pause, slows down what should be a quick action. Simply changing it to "He hastily crawled through the opening..." would flow better. Adverbs aren't always the enemy. Or find a quicker word than "crawled." And watch out for repetition: quote:Kalis breathed deeply, filling his lungs. Deep breaths do indeed tend to fill lungs. Don't need to be told that. There's also opportunity to show more character there through Kalis reacting to the storm. The flashback is better, but maybe has slightly more detail and drags on a bit more than necessary. As well, his mind being described as breaking free of the storm made me think he was scrying at first, but it turned out to be memories or dreaming. That description is probably unneeded. Overall, a bit rough, not bad. I like the oasis being described as a shimmering droplet of spittle. I wouldn't mind reading more of this.
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Feb 16, 2013 00:25
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 06:41 |
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I Am Hydrogen posted:How does someone scramble slowly? Scramble inside, turn around, drag it in. Maybe "scrambled through the opening and dragged the heavy pack..." Though the rewrite flowed okay to me. I could picture it. Great Rumbler: Those do sound better. Another quick skim reminded me of another more specific thing: First two paragraphs have the words "sand" and "hole" a lot. Try mixing that up. We already know a sandstorm will have sand. And another thing I'll pick on as a good example of something I don't think I got into much before: quote:The wind hit with its full fury, raking long, sharp claws across the thin fabric. It sought a hold, an entry, to tear away the tent and expose the soft flesh hidden within. Redundancy and wordiness. I notice it looks like you want to characterize the storm a bit, but it's buried to the point it slipped past me at first. quote:The wind hit with its full fury, raking its claws across the thin fabric, seeking to tear through and devour its fragile prey. Try coming up with ways to word things that keep the meaning and strip out any excess. It tends to give more impact. A good exercise is to set a number of words to chop, make a copy of the original file and whittle it down as much as possible. Even if you decide to put some of them back in later from the original, you'll start to see what's only dead weight.
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Feb 16, 2013 06:14
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Great Rumbler posted:Alright, let me throw out the first two paragraphs again: "the unprotected prey hidden within" is still a bit wordy (we already know he's in the tent, and this might be personal preference but "unprotected" feels odd to me when the tent is his protection) but that reads much better. The whole piece will flow smoother if you go over it like that. If it starts feeling like you can't see ways to change things because you've been looking at it for so long, set it aside for a few days and come back to it with fresh eyes. --- I said I'd post this here when I'd revised it, so: (A note: This is part of a larger work. The setting isn't medieval.) Predator (1086 words) A branch snapped far back in the forest. I looked up from the rabbit spoor I'd been investigating at the base of a young tree. The noise was muffled in the snow, but something large definitely approached. I nocked an arrow to my bowstring and took a knee. My stomach rumbled at the thought of fresh deer meat. The last rabbit I'd caught seemed a very long time ago. In truth, it had been; Loth was a terrible month for hunting, and my traps had been empty for days. The noise got louder. I could almost taste venison - but as it neared, I had misgivings. A prey animal shouldn't be so loud. I raised my bow and took aim at the shape that lumbered into sight. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't a deer. Its figure resolved through the falling snow and my gut sank. A body twice the size of a horse, knobbed and ridged - its head reptilian, like an ugly mockery of a true dragon. Wyrm. My breath caught in my throat. I had only seen one once, dead - but there were stories, oh were there stories. Faster than a horse, stronger than ten men, a hide that nothing short of a crossbow bolt or bullet could pierce. Were I standing, my head might reach its belly. Its teeth, when it paused and sniffed the air, were as long as my hand. And this was a small one. The one I'd seen was the size of a railcar and had taken two crossbow bolts to the chest to bring down - after it killed five men in the hunting party. I huddled in the brush, my heart pounding so hard it surely must hear it. This was impossible. They shouldn't be in this cold climate. Could I run? Was there any chance it could see movement and not think me prey? No. And it would scent me the moment the wind shifted. A short gust stirred the falling flakes and wafted a stench of rotten meat toward me. I choked down a cough and put arrow back to bow. I was a fool, to try to take this thing down alone - but then, I was always the fool. I raised the bow, took aim and a slow breath, and released. It gave a piercing screech as my arrow sank into its neck - barely deeper than the arrowhead, but it drew blood, which was better than I'd expected from the tales. My ears rang as I drew, nocked, fired again. Chest. This time it heard the bowstring snap and spotted me in the brush. Its slitted pupils dilated. Hellfire. I ran. It charged after me, smashing aside the tree I'd abandoned with a terrible crack. I jumped a log and broke hard right into a small copse, whirled with my blood pounding, another arrow raised. It barreled headlong past me, spun with a sinuous grace; scrabbled for traction in the snow and shrieked at my third arrow. Left flank. It crashed in after me and I dove out before it could snap me like the unfortunate trees it savaged in my wake. I chanced a glance over my shoulder. Our eyes locked, man and monster. I swallowed and ran with all I had. It certainly wasn't faster than a horse, at least in the forest, but three arrows didn't even slow it down. I needed cover. I needed broadheads, why hadn't I made broadheads? Damndamndamn. It was scarce seconds behind when I reached the bank. I threw myself over the edge and landed hard in snow with a crack of stream ice and a lance of pain through my shoulder. The wyrm overshot me and landed in the streambed, ice shattering beneath its bulk, my arrow driven deeper into its flank by the force of its impact. Its furious roar shook snow from the trees. I wrenched myself onto my knees. My fingers burned with the cold and my shoulder with pain but I drew the bowstring to my cheek and fired again. Right haunch; this one buried in halfway up the shaft. The wyrm stumbled as it tried to rise. I loosed another. Left hind leg. Then it was back on its feet, hissing in pain. I drew again- -gods- -it was on top of me. It batted me into the embankment like a toy. My bow jolted from my hand. The wyrm hissed again, louder, and I had the terrible feeling that it no longer only wanted to kill me. No, it wanted to kill me messily for the pain I'd caused it. Too close for the bow. I drew my sword. And, since I was a stupid fool, now I charged. It recoiled in surprise - only for an instant, but that was enough. It snapped at me but I twisted past teeth, past claws. It crouched to block my rush; I ducked under, faster, and drove my sword up into the soft flesh at the crook of its foreleg. It howled and jerked away. My sword went with it. Its tail whipped toward me; only my crouch saved me from broken ribs as I tucked and rolled with the impact. I felt something crack beneath me and grimaced. My bow hadn't been so fortunate. The wyrm limped away on three legs to examine the latest thorn. I dragged myself out of the snow for the third time and pulled out my boot knife. Hellfire, everything hurt. The wyrm kept a wary eye on me, but it now curled protectively around its leg. Blood spread in the snow, leaked into the stream. The water burbled over the beast's harsh breaths. We stared at each other for a long moment, the air tense as a bowstring. Then it faltered; stumbled, slipped on the ice, went down on its bad leg. Its screech as my sword drove in further sounded weaker. I moved in warily. It hissed and snapped, but the pain and blood loss had finally slowed it. I slammed the knife into its throat two-handed and darted away from its thrashing claws. The great beast gurgled and convulsed, but its movements slowed; and finally it slumped to the snow. Cold had begun to seep through my furs and into my bones by the time I checked to make sure it was dead. I yanked the knife out with shivering hands. But, despite the cold and the pain, I smiled. This would last much longer than a rabbit.
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Feb 16, 2013 20:14
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Sitting Here posted:"Cold had begun" bugs me here. I like this bit because you don't waste words telling us the protagonist stood around waiting to make sure the wyrm was dead. You move pretty much straight from action to resolution and don't mince words tying up the scene. Which is why I feel like "cold had begun" is a bit unwieldy. Good points, especially that one. How about "Cold was seeping through my furs by the time..." or is that still off? Great Rumbler posted:Most of my comments are just random, rambling thoughts, so don't think about them too hard. Some good points here too. Some of it has to do with being part of a larger work (hint: the wyrm's size is important to how it was killed so easily) and having to initially cut it down to fit 1000 words, but without word limit constraints I have more leeway than I used for the revision. The wyrm dying like that falls especially flat after the protag's thoughts that it's looking for revenge, now that I think about it. I'll see if I can make a more thrilling conclusion. Thanks, both of you. I do aim to have more from this setting up eventually. This scene in particular I want to expand to a short story at some point.
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Feb 19, 2013 06:31
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Plank posted:edit2: Is it normal to feel buoyant about a piece after it's been shredded by someone? Should be, it means you know how to make it better.
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Feb 22, 2013 17:28
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I have never heard it advised to avoid contractions outside of dialogue, especially when it's written in first-person and thus using the character's own voice to narrate. You say "clamber" sounds too complicated for the protagonist, but "I can't remember" is less fitting than "I cannot remember"? I hate to pick on someone else's critique, especially when the rest of it has good points, but this detail is...questionable at best.
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Jul 12, 2013 19:11
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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.
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Aug 13, 2013 20:19
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Did you even bother to read Beef's crit before splatting it up here without addressing anything he brought up? I don't even want to read it because my eyes slide off the constant linebreaks, and that says more about your formatting than my attention span. Read other entries, pay attention to how they're structured, rethink your approach. A line edit isn't going to do you any good at this point because it would be rewriting the entire thing.
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Nov 26, 2013 15:51
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TheRamblingSoul posted:But yeah, like I mentioned above, I'll try reading through more critiques (and good fiction - the last time I remember reading actual fiction was Grapes of Wrath *last year*) Every time. Every single drat time in these threads. Always read more.
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Nov 26, 2013 16:50
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elfdude posted:Revised mark II: https://docs.google.com/a/pdx.edu/document/d/1Slc49xywlgcpGup-oSaK0LhGW1UbMinvH1xLESkB57o/edit No way to tell until you make it visible to anyone with the link and enable comments. Just out of curiosity - anyone who posted things earlier in the thread have updates on progress with those pieces? Great Rumbler still following this?
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Feb 27, 2014 01:39
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Sithsaber posted:You reiterated the problem with train of thought and for some reason pasting killed the line break. But more to the point, does every story require spelling things out? I've always enjoyed good usage of omission. First off: Shut the gently caress up about blaming every problem on pasting and your phone. Only a bad tradesman blames his tools for shoddy craftsmanship. A good one makes do, or gets better tools before he tries selling a lopsided chair. Things I have done on a phone: Written a Thunderdome interprompt and counted the wordcount manually. Three times. To make sure it was accurate. Written numerous decent-length roleplay posts, free of formatting errors. Posted on this forum, including having to manually type a URL because it wouldn't paste where I wanted it to, while my keypad was glitching on me. Also no errors. Understood that some things just aren't meant to be done on a phone and waited until I was at a computer to do them, like reading this thread. Proofread and edited the poo poo that I expect other people to read and critique me on. Second: Your use of omission is you trying to be clever and mysterious. All it results in is no one knowing what you're trying to write because we can't read your mind. Grizzled Patriarch broke it down further, he's cool. My advice is to reread where you liked that, and pay closer attention to how it was done, what was shown (notice that word) rather than what was omitted, how those things played off each other. Right now you're omitting the details that make things comprehensible, rather than the details that raise the questions that create intrigue. And yet still being far too wordy. quote:Ps. And wouldn't a little give or take be better than basically telling me to shut the gently caress up? Some of us like to learn through active communication. There's a reason for people muting their mics in Skype calls when their stories are being critiqued. You defend yourself constantly. You, the author, will not always be there to explain to the reader what the hell is going on or what you meant. You aren't engaging in "how do I make this better"; you're monologuing "this is what I meant, you plebes just don't get it," and even if you don't mean it that way, which I am frankly inclined to doubt, it's obnoxious. Sithsaber posted:think up some characters that can that can drive my outlines Please do. The reason no one gives a poo poo about your samples is because none of them have characters with noticeable traits, so there's no reason to empathize, and no reason to care. Just try following the advice I posted here, and Beef's further rants on the topic that I linked in that post. It will be much easier to try to crit your writing from a complete self-contained short story than some snippet with no context. quote:and infodump exposition. please don't infodumping is a plague unto man for the love of the book gods no
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Jul 12, 2014 20:45
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Sithsaber posted:So do you get a hard on when you're freaking out like this? The other guy handled the issue with tact and without foaming at the mouth, which is obviously something you can do. You actually typed a paragraph complaining about me complaining about my shity phone, which is insane. Aww did I hurt your fee-fees? It is far from insane to call you out or constantly using an annoying excuse for you to be lazy and not fix the poo poo you're trying to get feedback on. You want us to fawn all over you but you can't be assed to take the time to even fix your writing. Would you submit to an editor like this and expect them to nod and accept your excuses? You don't see how insulting this is? I actually gave you advice but you want to refuse to acknowledge that and whine about me calling you out for being lazy. Though you also either disregarded or didn't understand half of what I suggested in fic advice, so I'm not sure what I expected.
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Jul 13, 2014 01:49
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 at you calling me an attention whore, and pretty sure you didn't admit to any error in the last two days before insulting me, but okay, fair enough.On your last offering: Nice outline, but where's the story? That isn't sarcasm. At least not entirely. But that entire thing is telling. You don't show a thing; the entire "story" consists of you telling me that Pride did this and was like that and Vanity did this other thing and boy did Pride hate that. The sudden violence is exactly that : It comes out of nowhere because, though you went on for paragraphs about hate, he was thinking of positive things. Sure, he snapped, but it was because The Author decided he should, not because it followed from what we had seen before. It almost works but it's again missing a reason for the reader to care. So what if two dudes hate each other? What makes these guys any different or more interesting from the million other times this story has been written, other than having meaninglessly meaningful names? Please take the advice that Grizzled Patriarch has given you, take the advice you ignored in my other post, and write a simple, new story that isn't obtuse, high-concept or faux-symbolic. Learn to walk before you try to dance a foxtrot.
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Jul 13, 2014 02:52
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 06:41 |
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Ausmund posted:Would love critique on my little story POWER OF SEX. It's a little longer so I'll link the thread. So this is what insanity looks like.  While you wait for the judges like the rest of us, might I suggest reading an actual book?
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Jul 20, 2014 22:09
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