Wannabe Writers Writing: Revisions, Feedback, Evil Chickens

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A general purpose thread for people interested in writing for fun or profit.

Post drafts or links and ask for feedback! Argue semantics! Inoculate your chickens against evil!

ClockworkHouse wrote:

1.) In any post for critiques, I think you need to specify whether you'd a.) like to receive criticism, and b.) whether you'd like that criticism privately or publicly. It'd be lousy to have someone posting something they just want to have read only to have someone publicly rip into it.

2.) Would it be easier and more readable if writing was linked to (like a Google doc) rather than posted directly?

Subscribed!

In case anyone's looking for a challenge, Will Wheaton / John Scalzi want you to write a short fanfic story about... well...

IMAGE(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4026/4653391338_e0fdb3989b_b.jpg)

Deadline is the end of the month (June). 400-2000 words. Prize is publication in a sci-fi mag and some other crap. I'm probably going to put something together, not because I think I'll win, but because it's too ridiculous to pass up.

Clemenstation wrote:

In case anyone's looking for a challenge, Will Wheaton / John Scalzi want you to write a short fanfic story about... well...

IMAGE(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4026/4653391338_e0fdb3989b_b.jpg)

Man, the latest World of Warcraft expansion just sucks.

May I offer two suggestions for this thread?

1.) In any post for critiques, I think you need to specify whether you'd a.) like to receive criticism, and b.) whether you'd like that criticism privately or publicly. It'd be lousy to have someone posting something they just want to have read only to have someone publicly rip into it.

2.) Would it be easier and more readable if writing was linked to (like a Google doc) rather than posted directly?

I'd say link to the writing.

Considering I would one day love to be a professional games critic, I welcome critique, especially from those that read this site.

So for now I'll just post a link to my website, as well as a column I write, and in the future I'll be linking specific works in particular.

As for feedback, I imagine the best route would be for private messages? I can see this thread filling up awfully fast with works to critique, let alone the comments on said works themselves.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

May I offer two suggestions for this thread?

1.) In any post for critiques, I think you need to specify whether you'd a.) like to receive criticism, and b.) whether you'd like that criticism privately or publicly. It'd be lousy to have someone posting something they just want to have read only to have someone publicly rip into it.

2.) Would it be easier and more readable if writing was linked to (like a Google doc) rather than posted directly?

Good stuff. Gonna add this to the OP.

Sometimes it can help to have a discussion around critique, but I agree that nobody wants to see their stuff publicly destroyed. On the other hand, however, that's kind of what writing for an audience is about: Growing a thick skin.

I second the idea that individual authors should specify what kind of interaction they're looking for from the rest of the thread.

dhelor? ccesarano?

Subscribed! Will post when I have more than a vague idea for the story I'm thinking about

Clemenstation wrote:

I second the idea that individual authors should specify what kind of interaction they're looking for from the rest of the thread.

dhelor? ccesarano?

If it'll save space then I guess just send private message or whatnot. I'm all for critique out in the open as I trust the members of this forum to actually be constructive, rather than, well, The Internet.

ccesarano wrote:
Clemenstation wrote:

I second the idea that individual authors should specify what kind of interaction they're looking for from the rest of the thread.

dhelor? ccesarano?

If it'll save space then I guess just send private message or whatnot. I'm all for critique out in the open as I trust the members of this forum to actually be constructive, rather than, well, The Internet.

Well, forum space is pretty much infinite, so we might as well fill it with something. Want to pick something specific from your site for us to read, though? You have a hell of a lot of content.

Oh jees. I need to round some drafts up and put them on google docs once I'm back in Oklahoma.

Okay I had a few thoughts.

dhelor wrote:

A plaque below the figure would have proclaimed it's origins... if Feril were a more learned fellow. Having been raised in squalor, books were a scarce commodity, and those that had been around were in his father's possession (and consisted mostly of lude limericks in any case).

1) Possessive of it is its, not it's. You do this once or twice elsewhere, too.

2) I'm not a huge fan of how you use the ellipses here. I see that you're trying to pause for effect, but I would say that you could easily cut 3/4ths of these out of the story and not lose a thing. As a chronic ellipses-user myself, I know how alluring they can be, but I don't know if they add much to your sentences. For example:

dhelor wrote:

The statue was not without its... footholds, however, and Feril was quite an adept climber.

See, I get that you're pausing here to emphasize that the foothold is the statue's dick, and it's well phrased, but the ellipses seem like they're extraneously used to point out the joke. Which, in turn, makes the joke seem less clever.

As far as the overall story goes, I think you need to seriously ramp up description for the moment when the statue wakes up. This should be a really scary moment, but you kind of breeze by it.

And if you can find a way other than direct exposition to lay out the mythology of the world you're building, I'd say go for it. There's a huge section where you're just straight-up telling the reader how things are, and it took me right out of the action. It would be more interesting to learn this stuff through dialog, and even more interesting if it's revealed bit by bit rather than chunked up near the beginning of the story.

Dhelor, I like the story so far and will keep reading. A few annoyances:

A plaque below the figure would have proclaimed it's origins

He held it in his hand and in the pale light of the morning sun, it fairly glistened, it's edge nearly keen.

and consisted mostly of lude limericks in any case

I would revise this into 2 (or more) sentences:

He had never gone much further from home than the ancient citadel perched on the mountaintop, but he had heard tales of vicious creatures lurking in the woods, and Feril had never been keen on creatures of any sort, be they vicious or otherwise.

The only in-progress piece I have right now is a short (for now) fantasy novel. I have about 120 pages of content on paper, 60 or so of which has been typed. I'm hoping to limit it to 200 pages, but it may outgrow the constraint. Plan was to package it with 4-5 short stories. Problem is it's in two formats, as I've recently decided to restructure (and revise while I'm at it). I think the new structure is inarguably better, so I'll probably get a google doc up for it and add as I make progress.

I'd imagined this thread to basically be a substitute for critiques in college classes. The writer's inability to respond to others' ideas on their work has always rubbed me wrong in those classes, though I understand why that's the case (the author can't respond individually once a story is published).

Having a full-time, non-writing job hampers my ability to churn this stuff out and stay motivated, so I'm hoping maybe a small group harassing each other to keep writing would help.

Subbed. I'm one of these people that has ideas but never sits themselves down to actually write. This might be the kick I need.

Here's a short story I just wrote:

I'm gonna read the sh*t out of this thread!, exclaimed skeletonframes.

He proceeded to read the sh*t out of the thread. His world was a better place.

Marking this thread for future consumption or utilization.

Clemenstation wrote:

As far as the overall story goes, I think you need to seriously ramp up description for the moment when the statue wakes up. This should be a really scary moment, but you kind of breeze by it.

DUDE! SPOILERS!

Subscribed.

Subscribed as well

Subbing.

I may dig around for some short stories I've got kicking around. I'm looking to be more creative coming this summer.

Hell, 2 years ago I started this as part of a similar initiative on another forum. It's intended as a larger work, I did begin a second chapter set much later, but haven't had the time to do any work on it for ages.

I'm still open for criticism, either here or on the blog.

Subscribed! I'll definitely utilize this thread later!

Regarding Dhelor:

I would like the seasoned grammarians to come out of the woodwork and correct me on this, but I was under the impression that ellipses were intended for pauses in dialogue. Conversations, first person monologues, that kind of thing. I like the idea of them, but I'm not entirely sure on how to use them so they've mostly been avoided. Wikipedia is as informative as it is vague. I understand in writing that rules can sometimes be broken for flavor, so I understand that they're not hard and fast, but any info would be appreciated. Thanks!

Also, you used quotation marks around the word acquired. Maybe this is an appropriate use of them, but I was also under the impression that quotations are usually used to quote commentary of some kind. For instance, if someone had mentioned he'd acquired the item earlier, and then the narrator borrowed the same terms already used to describe the situation. Would this be an instance where ellipses can be used outside of dialogue? As in:

On his way down the road, Feril had ...acquired from a passing merchant a sharpening stone and had been carefully honing his grandfather's sword.

Not trying to pick on you, Dhelor, just kind of using you for a few questions I had about writing in general. It's a brave thing to post your writing on the internet! Keep it up. I'm also posting to subscribe to this thread. Maybe someday I'll write something I don't hate and try to share it here.

Well, the way dhelor uses the quotations for acquired it is clearly implying that the item was stolen, so they do function as a commentary, they also provide a bit of a 'beat' to the sentence. On the 'nullified' though I'm not sure, it's also a euphemism for killed, but is a common enough term in that meaning that the commentary is a little redundant.

I would consider ellipses appropriate in dialogue, sparingly, but not in main text. Commas should rather be used. A writer can make a stylistic choice, but I would think long and hard before doing it.

Ellipses have a couple uses. When quoting someone, an ellipsis can be used to indicate an omission of something immaterial or irrelevant from that quote. It can also indicate a pause in a person's speech, or to indicate that something said has an implied alternative indicated by the context, for instance the famous quote from Bram Stoker's Dracula, "I do not drink...wine."

As for the use of the quotation marks, it's not uncommon for writers to use the in that way to call attention to ironic or apologetic words. For instance the following: He shared his "wisdom" with me. Quotation marks are also used to indicate that the writer realizes that a word is not being used in its current commonly accepted sense.

As for the example you gave from my story with the usage of quotations around "acquired," depending on a person's style it could be italicized for emphasis, set off with quotation marks as I've done, or with an ellipsis. I think it's more up to the writer's discretion in a case such as this.

dhelor wrote:

Stylistic stuff

All definitely true, and it is up to the writer's discretion, but if a work is submitted for publication you are going to have to fight with your editor and publisher every step of the way if you use ellipses and quotations in an unconventional way.

Amoebic wrote:

I would like the seasoned grammarians to come out of the woodwork and correct me on this, but I was under the impression that ellipses were intended for pauses in dialogue. Conversations, first person monologues, that kind of thing. I like the idea of them, but I'm not entirely sure on how to use them so they've mostly been avoided. Wikipedia is as informative as it is vague. I understand in writing that rules can sometimes be broken for flavor, so I understand that they're not hard and fast, but any info would be appreciated. Thanks!

Also, you used quotation marks around the word acquired. Maybe this is an appropriate use of them, but I was also under the impression that quotations are usually used to quote commentary of some kind. For instance, if someone had mentioned he'd acquired the item earlier, and then the narrator borrowed the same terms already used to describe the situation. Would this be an instance where ellipses can be used outside of dialogue?

Sure hope wordy shows up!

I see ellipses most frequently used in the way Amoebic describes (as pauses in dialog, trail-offs, etc), but I've also seen them used much like an m-dash... as a connector between two somewhat related ideas.

I've also seen them used much like an m-dash -- as a connector between two somewhat related ideas.

Agree with DeVil / dhelor in that they can be used at the writer's discretion, as long as there is some kind of internal logic or consistency to their use.

As for emphasizing certain words, I personally would have reserved quotation marks for dialog only, and used single 'quotes' to call attention to specific words. I have seen other writers use quotation marks like dhelor does, however.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

Hell, 2 years ago I started this as part of a similar initiative on another forum. It's intended as a larger work, I did begin a second chapter set much later, but haven't had the time to do any work on it for ages.

I'm still open for criticism, either here or on the blog.

Okay some notes here too!

I'll start by saying that I like the writing voice, and the flow works well. For some reason I couldn't help but think about the beginning of Secret of Mana while I was reading.

Strangely enough you use the exact opposite approach to quotation marks as dhelor (single quotes for both dialog and emphasis). Can I ask why?

The voice in his dream, a whisper, somehow frantic, calling for help in a language he couldn’t understand, seemed to cast a shadow over the familiar surroundings of the monastery.

Felt like there should be an extra comma in there. Personal preference.

The mound was so commonplace in the minds of the people that Cayden had barely noticed it in the four years he had been at the monastery.

Capital T.

His father had always called him a changeling because of his fairness, so unlike that of the rest of his family. Although they said his grandmother had been in possession of hair like spun gold in her youth.

It's pretty tough to make a sentence that starts with 'Although' work; this one cuts the flow in my opinion.

She held out her hand to him and gestured. Although his mind was a whirlwind, he returned the smile and without hesitation he took her hand.

For example, I think this 'Although' works much better, although a comma might help too.

Her face was unlined and unmarked, yet there was a gravity in her gaze that seemed to make her older than anyone Cayden knew. Even the old Abbot that had passed the year before seemed carefree compared to this gaze.

I really like this bit, because in describing the woman's age you refer back to the main character's monastery setting by referring to the Abbot -- a gentle reminder to the reader who may still be trying to grab a handhold somewhere. Very subtle.

One last niggling thing: You usually refer to the Abbot with a capital A, but there's an instance in the third paragraph where you use the small a. Most people won't notice. Freaks such as myself will be rather bothered by this lack of consistency.

One last niggling thing: You usually refer to the Abbot with a capital A, but there's an instance in the third paragraph where you use the small a. Most people won't notice. Freaks such as myself will be rather bothered by this lack of consistency.

It's a tough balance - I try and read a piece without letting grammar or spelling issues (or style choices I really, really hate) color my opinion, but something like this will jump out at me and potentially bias my view of the story as a whole.

NSMike: Good stuff, especially for an initial draft! I would like to see the first paragraph revised (I understand that you're trying to subtly foreshadow here, but it's a little drawn out).

Also, because I'm a nerd, I'd like to know more about the weaponry being used - a little more description would be nice since it's a focal point of the action.

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