Wannabe Writers Writing: Revisions, Feedback, Evil Chickens

RSPaulette wrote:

PRO TIP that I learned in college from the great Tom DeHaven of Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies and It's Superman fame. It's a dialogue tag trick to use when "said" isn't enough, but you're trying to avoid a dreaded fancy verb and/or adverb combo, try changing this:

Chairman's Example from Earlier wrote:

"I'm mad as hell, and I can't take this anymore!" he exploded.

To this:

Fancy Tagging Trick wrote:

"I'm mad as hell!" Beale slammed his hands palm down on the desk. "And I can't take this anymore!"

The key to the trick is that you're using the character's action -- something physical as well as visual to indicate everything that your fancy verbs and adverbs reduntantly try to capture from the dialogue. We know he's mad because of the context of his dialogue, the use of one (and only one, for God's sake) exclamation point, and the physical action he's taking to indicate his anger.

I'm also giving the action probably more description than it needs to illustrate the point. It'd read just fine as "Beale slammed down his hands." Or "Beale slapped the desk." Perhaps even adding a prepositional "against the desk" if you're feeling fancy.

The key to this, though, is either finding a nice interruptable spot in the dialogue, or heading or tailing the dialogue with it. Find natural pauses, though, 'cause nothing drives me battier than seeing dialogue tagged at an awkward spot in the flow of the spoken language.

My two cents, for what it's worth.

EDITS: Fixing URL tags. Sorry.

I would digg this up, but then I'm on the wrong site. Action verbs almost always trumps adjectives, nouns, and in this case descriptive verbs. Another place this applies is when you're trying to think of how to describe someone's physical appearance--avoid using adjectives, as counterintuitive as that seems. Don't just tell me his shoes are shiny and brown; tell me about the day their new young owner bought them before starting his first job, how he ties them up exactly the same way every morning, how he admires their shine after a good polish, and how one day his wife runs one over with the lawn mower (on purpose).

As for dialog verbs, I think they are helpful when you're trying to make the reader feel the narrator is somehow a part of the story, a storyteller rather than just a straight narrator. Still I'm not all that fond of them, but it's really important never to rule out a particular writing tactic. Any rule you come across, there's likely to be a great story that breaks it.

One example I like is The Remains of the Day--writing classes almost always push writers to focus on active voice, concision, "tight" prose, etc. etc. But Remains turns this rule on its head, and gets away with it admirably.

Also, I suggest books on writing over websites on writing. They tend to be provide better examples and anecdotes. Stephen King's On Writing is another good one, and it's fun to read.

Minase wrote:
I love writing myself and I have an active blog that I am busy retasking from its academic purpose into my own personal obsession. This and this are recent posts I wrote that I wouldn't mind an opinion on both theoretically and editorially.

Blotto:

You alluded to it earlier, but the biggest problem I have with your writing in the first piece (besides spelling/grammar errors, esp. homonyms) is that it's very academic - lots of passive voice.

I read both posts.

Agree that the typos and homonym misuse can be a little distracting, but they aren't so prolific as to make the posts totally unreadable.

Thought the idea of appropriating leftover bits and pieces from other peoples' projects into your own was a pretty cool idea!

The other one ("Thinking") I thought suffered a bit, both from a rather vague title and the meandering nature of the body text. I get the idea: creating is a fluid process, one with no 'correct' outcome although it is influenced strongly by cultural expectations (which are, themselves, reinforced through the discourse of academia). I've read this idea lots of times before, although not from an architectural perspective.

But because the idea isn't strongly articulated at the front-end of the post, I found myself wondering exactly what the hell I was getting into. I've read so many blog posts where people contemplate their own role as a creator (and written quite a few shameful iterations myself) that I tend to bail out ASAP as soon as I think the writer is descending into contemplative narcissism. I don't think that's what this post ends up as, but you could do a better job of letting the reader know with some cues earlier on.

ccesarano wrote:

Damn, I've been really busy lately so I haven't had the time to really check back on this forum, let alone this thread. I might start to put some of my more creative writing up here as well, but for now let's see if I can find something since Clemenstation asked for more specific links.

Here's one long critique of Sleeping Beauty I did not too long ago. A number of people found it amusing, but it would still be interesting to see what folks here think of it.

I read the Sleeping Beauty one.

Well-written overall, some funny lines, couple of typos and gaffs.

relatioonship dynamic
For some reason the fairies were unable to detect a series of magical illusions in the room they placed the princess into, despite being magical creatures themselves.

I think you could've done away with paragraphs 3-8 and just jumped straight into Sleeping Beauty to reduce wordcount and tighten the focus. The first 2 paragraphs do a good job of setting up WHY you're doing this analysis (niece, new perspective on misogyny).

However, the actual analysis doesn't entirely follow up on the introduction's promise. You spend a lot of words poking fun at the movie's admittedly hole-filled plot and the irrationality of its characters' decisions. This is only tangentially related to what the reader is led to believe is your main point, which is that the movie is full of misogyny and rather inappropriate as a model of gender roles for children to learn from.

Of course, if the point of the article is just to straight-up point out all the ways in which the plotting and character outlines fail, you should definitely reframe the intro to reflect this instead.

I'm going to post something sizable here (20 or so pages) tomorrow, for readers with a bit of endurance. I was hoping to polish it a bit more but oh well.

Have we all lost interest in writing already?

Or is E3/World Cup too much of a distraction?

I could really use some eyes on my fanfic submission: Producing Content. Deadline's coming up.

Clemenstation wrote:

Have we all lost interest in writing already?

Or is E3/World Cup too much of a distraction?

I could really use some eyes on my fanfic submission: Producing Content. Deadline's coming up.

I honestly do think it's E3. I was totally planning a 3 hour writing session Monday but watching press conferences on the couch with some pals ruined 'em.

I'll give that a read during the first part of my session today, where I'd normally read something for inspiration (so you determine my progress!).

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Also, I suggest books on writing over websites on writing. They tend to be provide better examples and anecdotes. Stephen King's On Writing is another good one, and it's fun to read.

Another fun one: The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp. I hate the pedantic tone many writing books take.

Clemenstation wrote:

Have we all lost interest in writing already?

I'm working on another story at the moment. This one is probably going to be longer and is a more complicated undertaking. I was going for a minimalist sci-fi approach for my other story (extremely minimalist, as there is nothing sci-fi about it until the last sentence), but this one is much more involved and may take some actual research to nail down properly.

On a side note, while working on it, I was intending to type "lung capacity" and accidentally started typing "lunch capacity." I'm a little hungry at the moment.

Clemenstation wrote:

Have we all lost interest in writing already?

Or is E3/World Cup too much of a distraction?

It's E3 and work for me. I'm working on a critique of your story that I'll be posting soon.

Clem: couple notes, what I think are corrections, and an overall feeling for it:

"Are you sure?" asked Scalzi. "I seem to recall the design document said 'flying'." - *I think* that should be either "I seem to recall the design document saying..." or "I seem to recall that the design document said..." I've long forgotten the exhaustive rules that dictate this sort of thing, but I have a sharp ear for what is and isn't right. My gut says that's a smidge off.

Shortly after that you say "ridiculously overcomplex." It might just be a stylistic thing, but that seems a little redundant. "Ridiculously complex" and "overcomplex" are basically the same, I think a combination is overstating things a bit.

"John Scalzi went out into the world again, evidently on some sort of mission to murder seagulls this time." - Take off "this time" and see if it rolls better off the tongue. Did for me.

Really like the paragraph where Scalzi fell off the machine.

There's a few references I don't get, I suppose because I don't really know what these guys are into. Inside jokes are a part of fanfic, I guess.

"Wheaton was indignant." This is pretty standard, but maybe try to find a physical expression that conveys him being indignant better than just saying it. Make a face you would if someone was smacktalkin' your paper mache unipegacatarpillar.

"Like, he sees this whacky scene and it's just such a crazy blowmind that he has no other response than to say 'FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU'." - Isn't "whacky" just "wacky?" Also, "crazy blowmind" is a bit awkward. Unless there's a kind of blowmind that isn't crazy, you don't really need the crazy part. Sometimes I guess a noun is descriptive enough to not need an adjective.

Overall, good stuff. My gripes are minor, obviously. I wouldn't change the main thrust of the story, just tweaks.

Clemenstation wrote:

Have we all lost interest in writing already?

Or is E3/World Cup too much of a distraction?

I could really use some eyes on my fanfic submission: Producing Content. Deadline's coming up.

There's E3, yes, and also just a readjustment to unemployed life. You'd think I'd have more time, but it doesn't feel that way (I don't know what I'm going to do with my life if I can't figure out how to write about games for a living).

Anywho, with the critique of my Sleeping Beauty article, you touched on something I'm working on improving and that's basically a better structure. Intro, body and conclusion. Typically I've just sat down, started writing and then had to fight to come up with a proper conclusion. That part is usually the hardest because I've never had a structure in mind. I'm trying to take an approach closer to what I did with College papers where the beginning tries to set the idea and then the conclusion summarizes.

But writing to be entertaining while also making a point is often a bit troublesome. But that's why I try to write as often as possible. Eventually I'll get used to doing both and it'll flow together neatly and professionally.

Blind_Evil wrote:

"Are you sure?" asked Scalzi. "I seem to recall the design document said 'flying'." - *I think* that should be either "I seem to recall the design document saying..." or "I seem to recall that the design document said..." I've long forgotten the exhaustive rules that dictate this sort of thing, but I have a sharp ear for what is and isn't right. My gut says that's a smidge off.

Being that the indicated text is dialogue, it shouldn't really matter. People rarely speak in a grammatically correct fashion.

dhelor wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

"Are you sure?" asked Scalzi. "I seem to recall the design document said 'flying'." - *I think* that should be either "I seem to recall the design document saying..." or "I seem to recall that the design document said..." I've long forgotten the exhaustive rules that dictate this sort of thing, but I have a sharp ear for what is and isn't right. My gut says that's a smidge off.

Being that the indicated text is dialogue, it shouldn't really matter. People rarely speak in a grammatically correct fashion.

The deciding factor isn't whether or not it matters, but author's intent. Grammatical mistakes in dialog are fine for flavor, but only when intentional. My gut tells me in this case it was a simple oversight. It's Clem's call.

It also depends on other factors. How much of a stickler is your editor? This kind of thing slides at local creative mags and IGN, not so much at places that pride themselves on snootery.

Thanks for the read, Blind_Evil!

Blind_Evil wrote:

"Are you sure?" asked Scalzi. "I seem to recall the design document said 'flying'." - *I think* that should be either "I seem to recall the design document saying..." or "I seem to recall that the design document said..." I've long forgotten the exhaustive rules that dictate this sort of thing, but I have a sharp ear for what is and isn't right. My gut says that's a smidge off.

I think that your gut is right, although like dhelor points out it might be okay in the context of dialog. Still, I agree that it reads a bit off.

Changed to: "I seem to recall that the design document mentioned flying."

Blind_Evil wrote:

Shortly after that you say "ridiculously overcomplex." It might just be a stylistic thing, but that seems a little redundant. "Ridiculously complex" and "overcomplex" are basically the same, I think a combination is overstating things a bit.

I was trying to convey that the machine, which ostensibly has the simple job of hoisting a large paper mache cat up in the air, has way, WAY too many moving parts and bits. I'll have to think about this one.

Blind_Evil wrote:

"John Scalzi went out into the world again, evidently on some sort of mission to murder seagulls this time." - Take off "this time" and see if it rolls better off the tongue. Did for me.

Agree 100%. Thanks for that.

Blind_Evil wrote:

There's a few references I don't get, I suppose because I don't really know what these guys are into. Inside jokes are a part of fanfic, I guess.

I know little to nothing about either Wheaton or Scalzi. I tried to build them some fictional personae (Scalzi has tons of obscure collector items, Wheaton is shamefully obsessed with mainstream pop culture), just because I could. Which references didn't work for you?

Blind_Evil wrote:

"Wheaton was indignant." This is pretty standard, but maybe try to find a physical expression that conveys him being indignant better than just saying it. Make a face you would if someone was smacktalkin' your paper mache unipegacatarpillar.

How about "Wheaton looked sour." ?

Blind_Evil wrote:

"Like, he sees this whacky scene and it's just such a crazy blowmind that he has no other response than to say 'FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU'." - Isn't "whacky" just "wacky?" Also, "crazy blowmind" is a bit awkward. Unless there's a kind of blowmind that isn't crazy, you don't really need the crazy part. Sometimes I guess a noun is descriptive enough to not need an adjective.

Whacky without the h, indeed. I think I will take your advice and get rid of the "crazy" too, because I just noticed that I use crazy earlier on.

Anyway, thanks again.

I like the term "crazy blowmind". As a matter of fact, I think you definitely need both words together to describe certain things. Take Bulletstorm dialogue, for example.

Here ya go. Here's something for you guys to read. I kept thinking about this at work, yesterday, and decided to put it on digital paper, today.

[size=16]A Hero Awakes[/size]

Through the dense, night air of a hazy forest, a man in a tweed jacket opens his eyes and attempts to place himself in his surroundings. He stands for a second, deciding which direction to head; a wave of familiarity washing over him. He's been here before, he's sure of it. He follows his instinct and heads toward a distant light. The span between himself and the light is dark, eery, almost harrowing, but the soft glow calls to him. He starts moving slowly toward his destination. As he walks, the beam of his flashlight bounces off the surrounding trees and casts spooky, distorted shadows on the sheer rock walls of the mountain to each side.

How did he get here?

The world had opened up to him, like the flash of waking from sleep. A sleep with no dream. A coma. One moment - nothing. One moment - everything. It's as if, before he opened his eyes in that moment, he didn't exist.

His flashlight glances across a bush that fizzles and sparks as the two connect. He hears an otherworldly voice call out from the bush. Something about hot dogs. His thoughts quickly turn from pondering his existence to prolonging it. For a moment, the only sound in the air is the hard, repetitive beating of his heart. The man in the tweed jacket holds his flashlight up by his shoulders and points it at the voice in the bush. He stands still for a moment, his flashlight focused intently at the sparking bush. There are no sparks. There is no voice.

A tree branch snaps just out of his periphery and a voice howls out behind him.

Change the oil regularly to avoid unfortunate incidents.

The voice curdles and hacks mid-sentence. The man can almost feel the electricity of the sound on the back of his neck.

He breaks into a full sprint. Soft, wet grass mashes under each step. He stares straight into the welcoming light in the distance, heart pounding. Bile rises in his chest like acid. Each footstep is heavier than the last. Another sound accompanies the nonsensical ramblings cutting through the calm of the forest.

The sound of boots thudding densely on the forest floor.

It's not just a voice. It's a being.

A cool breeze licks his left ear and he sees a flat,fist-sized object land and slide awkwardly across the trail in front of him. The drumming in his chest reaches an aching crescendo as his feet hit the gravel and he sees that it's a small, wood-handled hatchet laying there.

This isn't a game. This is serious.

The glare of his flashlight jumps from left to right, left to right with every dull footstep. The air is thick as cotton in his lungs as he slows to a plodding jog. The sound of work-boots on gravel echoes off the cavernous walls encroaching him. There is no chance of escape. He cannot continue.

A small light shimmers on a tree stump, just up ahead, and his spirit lifts with hope. This isn't just some accidental refraction of the moon's glow, or his own flashlight bouncing back at him. It's a beacon, carefully placed, to guide him. He reaches out for it with his right hand and feels the cool, finished steel of man-made equipment. A reminder of home in this alien wood.

The shape is immediately identifiable. It's a handgun. A revolver. He spins the cylander open and sees five bullets nestled in their chambers. He has five shots to take down this hatchet-throwing maniac.

Five shots. Five.

Never, in his life, has so much counted on so little.

He turns and, for the first time, lays eyes on his pursuer. It's a tall, husky man in grease-monkey over-alls. Familiar, yet foreign. It's skin is a sickly white with sunken features on every angle of it's being. It moves both fluidly and unnaturally. Streams of diluted ink seem to flow around and through it's body.

The man in the tweed jacket and the being draped in black haze stand about twenty feet from one another. The man raises his revolver and holds his breath. The being rushes toward him; Axe clutched in it's raised arm. The man points the barrel of the gun at the being's chest and pulls the trigger. The creature stutters a half-step to the side and continues its pursuit, unfazed.

Four shots.

Did he miss? Could he not see clearly?

He raises his flashlight to get a clean shot and the being is slowed in its tracks. He points the revolver at the maniac, again, and fires another round. It is a visible hit. The maniac stumbles backward, arms flailing in the air, feet shuffling for footing. An instant splash of remorse hits the man in the face and he winces and gasps to choke it down. His flashlight lands back on the creature as it gains a foothold and starts it's relentless approach, again.

Three shots.

The man raises the gun again; his hand trembling. The being runs at him, hissing sporadic dialogue in a demonic vibrato. His mind clouds and swirls as he squints to focus on his attacker. Every muscle tenses.

Two shots.

The being lurches up in the air, head thrown back, and falls limply to the ground. The swirling darkness around the creature consumes it and breaks into a dust in the cool night air. Nothing remains. Where once there laid a dehumanized man, sits an empty patch of moist earth.

The man in the tweed jacket drops his arms to his side and pauses for a moment, examining the space where the being had just vanished. It seems unfathomable, but somehow expected.

At that moment, another being leaps from behind a tree, and two more creatures charge in from the side. The man lifts his gun and takes aim.

Two shots. Three creatures.

He drops his gun to his side, dips his shoulder and spins clockwise toward the light at the end of the trail. It's only ten yards in front of him, now. He makes a run for it. A sea of grey swirls around him and the trees shake with violent gusts. The voices of the three beings gargle gibberish at the back of his jacket. An axe flies by his arm, missing by inches.

The man's throat pulses with each beat of his heart. A jackhammer drilling its way into his head. The light is close, now. He can make out the silhouette of a building breaking the surface of the rays. A few more feet and he's safe.

Another being jumps out from a bush, next to him, and time slows to a crawl as he narrowly avoids the swing of it's axe against the side of his head. The four creatures make a last attempt at hitting him as he breaks the plane of the light and stops in the warm embrace of it's glow. He's revitalized in an instant.

Beyond the light there is nothing to be heard. The wind has died down and the trees are still. No footsteps behind the rocks. No voices calling out. The man walks up to the building and into the doorway.

He's made it. He's survived.

The next few moments play out before him, like a choreographed dance. Each movement - a carefully crafted charade. Each word - chosen in advance. He watches the events, as if standing outside himself.

Then darkness. He's neither awake nor sleeping. Neither here nor there. His world is completely empty, except for the sound of Roy Orbison.

A twenty-odd year old man sits at the edge of his bed. His hair disheveled. Bags hang under his eyes. He sits and stairs at a television screen, a Roy Orbison song crooning from it's speakers. A small grin slowly crawls across his lips.

He's made it. He's survived.

And now it's time for breakfast.

Here's the first 28 or so pages of my longest running project. If you don't like midieval business with a dash of fantasy, you may not be interested. I have about 110 pages of content written, whether or not all of it is going to be used.

I'm more interested with a general feel for the narrative, rather than line edits and the like (though if you feel like mentioning any, feel free). I haven't gone through this with a fine toothed comb for typos, errors and the like. Also, ignore any weird lines. This is a work in progress and needs dividers here and there.

If anyone else is uploading a MS Word document on here, I'd suggest changing to Fixed-Width page under the View menu. I didn't like having screen-side margins.

For skeletonframes:

Good story! (It's Alan Wake, right?). Liked the meta aspect. Might want to mention something about a controller in the last few paragraphs to reinforce the impact of the reveal.

Very nice pacing, and you don't fall into the trap of using long, convoluted sentences where short, jarring sentences work much better.

A cool breeze licks his left ear and he sees a flat,fist-sized object land and slide awkwardly across the trail in front of him. The drumming in his chest reaches an aching crescendo as his feet hit the gravel and he sees that it's a small, wood-handled hatchet laying there.

Since you refer to sound so frequently in the lead-up bits, I think some sort of audible description would fit well here. The hatchet thunking into the dirt trail, perhaps, or the whistling sound it makes as it flies past the hero's ear. Let's face it, this would be a jarring experience and in the silence of the woods it's hard to believe that the sound wouldn't jump out as a prominent reaction to almost getting brained by an ax.

The being rushes toward him; Axe clutched in its raised arm.

Not sure if you need a semicolon here. Comma should work just as well.

A couple of other spots where it's is used instead of its. This seems to be a writer trend in this thread.

F*ck feminists. F*ck them in their gnarling snaggle-toothed crotch-gobbling terror holes.

Thanks Clem, I'll look into it. I have no sort of education, at all, so I'm not even sure where its should replace it's. Someone mentioned when it's possessive, earlier? Is this right?

I'll definitely add some sound associated with the hatchet. I didn't want to be too descriptive and throw off the pacing. It's funny how you mention that I didn't use long descriptive sentences, because on my read-through I noticed that I did, and chopped about 10 sentences up when I didn't like the flow.

I'm contemplating the controller mention. I don't know how to include it without hitting the reader in the face with the fact that it's a video game. I don't want to be too subtle, but I don't want to be too blatant, either.

Thanks for reading it. It means much.

Thanks Clem, I'll look into it. I have no sort of education, at all, so I'm not even sure where its should replace it's. Someone mentioned when it's possessive, earlier? Is this right?

One trick I've used:

When in doubt, separate. If using it is instead of it's doesn't make sense, don't do it.

Clemenstation wrote:
The being rushes toward him; Axe clutched in its raised arm.

Not sure if you need a semicolon here. Comma should work just as well.

A couple of other spots where it's is used instead of its. This seems to be a writer trend in this thread.

Clem's right about the semicolon -- use a comma, since the usage above is as an absolute. It's very close to an independent clause, which would warrant the semicolon, but since it's not there -- subject/verb agreement and the lack of an article makes it phrasal not clausal -- using a comma should do just fine.

And, yes, the its/it's has been explained upthread. Short version: "its" is a possessive, "it's" is a contraction. On a practical level, your test is if you can replace any apostrophe usage with "it is" then it's appropriate; in the above example, "axe clutched in it is raised arm" is clearly wrong, whereas earlier in this very sentence is clearly right.

Then again, though, I've been on summer break for a week, so I should take my English Teacher hat off, shouldn't I?

Thanks guys. You are most helpful.

Got a new column up (one of two or three this weekend since it's E3) called What Nintendoes. I feel like I screwed up the conclusion a bit, but overall I feel that this is a rather strong piece. Of course, that's only because I went over it one extra time to make modifications. Once I go back to reread it I'll probably start hating it more and more.

In any case, let me know what you think.

I'll get to critiquing the work of others soon. Unfortunately I don't feel very qualified to do so, particularly since I'm not much of a grammar hound. I spot the basics, sure, but I still don't know when it is appropriate to use whom over who.

Clemenstation: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dckjvrbx_44g4fzdc9w

Sorry about the delay, here. I've been swamped at work.

NSMike, did you want a critique of your second draft of the Adam story? I'm not sure, since you've moved on to something else.

I'll take whatever you want to give.

NSMike wrote:

I'll take whatever you want to give.

Hot.