Fiction Farm to Table: Artisanal crits ITT

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Fiction Farm to Table: Artisanal crits ITT

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

An editor posted:

This piece was well-written, but we felt it would've worked better starting on page 8, with the MORIARTY idea worked into the Global Security meeting.

I need a second opinion on this. I am normally a fan of starting in medias res, but I think at least some of the slice-of-life scenes in the beginning are necessary for the rest to have the full impact.

Comments on the rest of the story are welcome as well, of course

.

Edit: Page 8 in the original document is page 6 in the google doc.

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Dec 6, 2021

# ¿ Apr 4, 2021 14:26

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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 17:12

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Thanks, both of you. This is super helpful

. I knew I had to tighten the story, but I wasn't sure how to go about it. I will probably follow most of Leng's advice.

Part of the challenge of writing in a foreign language is that it is hard to find good beta readers... My friends and family mostly just tell me that my English is very good, which is flattering but not very useful.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2021 17:55

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Luigi Thirty posted:

Carrying over from the other thread�

Right, this is what I�m trying to do� I guess I wasn�t sure if I was on the right track with it. It�s definitely at the outline stage at the moment. That�s helpful to flesh it out, thanks.

Yes! This feels a lot more impactful. Rin has no control and a lot of things are happening at once. I think this is the main key I was missing. I feel embarrassed not picking up on that.

You should probably include the actual text being discussed.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2022 10:12

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

here

No, I am pretty sure they are talking about the excerpt from this post. Anyway, the fact that it is unclear confirms the importance of including it here.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2022 11:52

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

BigRed0427 posted:

Um, hi everyone. I wrote a short romance story about two high school guys and wanted to get some critiques on it. I plan on doing more with these characters. Anything will be helpful. Thank you in advance for your time.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DtbK50S5GTumKdKrGeIydtqp5oEKhJxsPCG1O1r34R8/edit?usp=sharing

I didn't read the whole thing, but a few things jumped out at me in the beginning: You use a lot of "was / were" constructions, which should usually be avoided in favor of stronger verbs. Make the subject of the sentence act, even if the subject of the sentence is a table and the action is standing there. For example, it is usually better to write something like "a table stood against the wall", rather than "there was a table by the wall." There is also a dearth of sensory impressions until we get to the smell of cookies towards the end of the paragraph, but then I am already getting bored. Mary Robinette Kowal has a very good video on short stories, where she talks about the importance of starting with strong sensory impressions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blehVIDyuXk

Lastly, it is not entirely clear if we are seeing things from Ronnie's or Jake's perspective. I think we shift to Jake at the end?

I would move the smell of cookies to the beginning of the first paragraph and write something like:

Me posted:

"The smell of cookies nearby made Ronni hungry and distracted him from his classwork. He and Jake sat in their usual seats at the back of the room, trying to make it through the last class of Friday - Geometry. Ronnie sucked at math, but he tried his hardest to keep up and get the most important things down, even though it was all Greek to him.

Jake, on the other hand, kept his head down and did not bother to pay attention. He was so bored he considered confessing to a terrorist attack, just to make the teacher shut the gently caress up about squares."

I hope this is useful. I am the kind of person who can't resist trying to rewrite everything in my own style

SimonChris posted:

I need a second opinion on this. I am normally a fan of starting in medias res, but I think at least some of the slice-of-life scenes in the beginning are necessary for the rest to have the full impact.

Comments on the rest of the story are welcome as well, of course .

This is now on* Amazing Stories. 10/10, would use thread again.

* Not in Amazing Stories since the magazine is on hiatus, but on their website. Whatever, I'll take it.

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 12:18 on Jul 2, 2023

# ¿ Jul 2, 2023 12:13

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Now available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CHBJ7X7W

I could use some feedback on this story about building power armor for ghosts. Any comments are welcome

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Sep 5, 2023

# ¿ Aug 17, 2023 09:23

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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 17:12

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

CaptainCrunch posted:

A tiny bit of thread necromancy so that I may request feedback on the blurb for my second book. This would be a follow up to All In should you have seen it mentioned in other threads. Thanks in advance.

Your opening paragraph is all about how Xenia despises her life, everything sucks, and everyone is mean to her. This doesn't make me want to keep reading. Since "Magic is real" is the main hook for you book, I would move that to the beginning and maybe weave in some stuff about her earlier life later. A blurb should not be a chronological summary.

Honestly, I think it works pretty well if you just cut the first paragraph entirely:

CaptainCrunch posted:

Magic is real.

Not just magic, but creatures out of myth and legend. As wonderful as this might sound, Xenia Findlay winds up in trouble faster than she can say Presto! You see, most of those creatures don�t play well with humans to begin with and now that Xenia�s begun to dabble in magic, she seems to have a target on her back.

Because bad news is never bad enough, students at her new school have been disappearing. Every week means another empty chair.
And then the bodies start turning up.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2023 14:05

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Fiction Farm to Table: Artisanal crits ITT