This is topic First Book: Duo The Twin Worlds: Original Soul (Fantasy-78K words) in forum Fragments and Feedback for Books at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.
*Version 1 First 13(19)* It was raining again, it had been raining for nearly a week, though not uncommon for the time of year. The heavy downpour the last few days left the streets of the capital bare of all but the most determined of traveler. Near the end of the cities market row a frayed, oil covered sleeve wiped condensation from the inside of a store’s large front window before a young woman's face, sour with boredom peered out. She had the last traces of youth lingering in her light grey eyes, and in the fullness of her high freckled cheeks, the small pout on her lips as she gazed into the downpour beyond. Yet the unmistakable curves of adulthood now graced her lean frame. The frayed green tunic she wore was torn and tied together across her chest well above her waist, exposing her midsection and highlighting her lithe curves. The young
*Version 2 First 13+* She hated the rain. Every year right before the Twin worlds of Duo would align, the capital of Cross would become a swamp in the endless summer rain. Beka sighed and watched the blue and gray roof shingles of the merchants quarter drain the consistent rain in curtains of water onto the cobblestone streets below. Her home at the very end of the merchants row backed up against the perimeter wall of the city's inner barricade separating it from the other districts, most notably the poor quarter just on the other side of the high stone barricade. Heavy ringing of metal being pounded into submission within the shop would normally have been heard echoing over the now empty and half flooded market square this close to the noon tolling. The tall smokestacks of the forge where she lived and worked with her Uncle should be billowing with work in preparation for the coming tournaments.
*Version 3 First 13+* Beka hated waiting, as the apprentice and niece to the capital of Cross's most well-known blacksmith Montgomery Galten, she should be working, or at the very least designing filigree for a local knights tournament armor. When the humid summer storms descended, she warned her uncle that the arcane runes warding the Forge Stacks were going to fail. But of course he didn't listen. Now the Silver Light Smithy's forge basin was flooded, drowning the fire, along with her plans. All she can do is wait, wait and fiddle with whatever side project her uncle has lying around. Rocking her chair back on its hind legs she sighed and met her own gaze in the enchanted glass of the shops front window. Light grey eyes and a smattering of freckles gazed back at her under a tangle of wild red hair.
Version 4 First 13+ Beka hated waiting, as an apprentice blacksmith in the capital she should be working. Rocking her chair back on its hind legs she sighed. A small metal link bounced off the back of her head. Turning cool light grey eyes over her shoulder, she glared at her attacker. Tucking a stand of wild red hair behind a slightly pointed ear.
“You did not just…” her melodic voice was cut off as another link bounced off her freckled cheek.
“I said, quit sitting in my chair that way girl!” Her uncle met her glare with one of his own, before his face cracked into a wide grin, partially obscured by his thick red mustache. Beka shook her head at him and could not help but grin back.
*Version 5 First 13* Beka hated waiting, as an apprentice blacksmith in the capital she should be working. Rocking her chair back on its hind legs she sighed, with boredom. Suddenly something hard bounced off the back of her head, and clattered to the floor. Tucking a stand of wild red hair behind a slightly pointed ear, she huffed indignantly. Turning light grey eyes over her shoulder, she glared at her attacker.
“You did not just-” her melodic voice was cut off by a link of chain bouncing off her freckled cheek.
“Quit sitting in my chair that way. Ya fool girl!” Her Uncle, the culprit of the attack met her glare with one of his own. It faltered a heartbeat latter, his face cracking into a wide grin under a thick red mustache. Beka shook her head at him and could not help but grin back.
[ March 04, 2019, 06:18 PM: Message edited by: Demetri Grim ]
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
An outsider narrator reports a shopkeeper scene.
Nineteen lines, by the way. Thirteen tolls at "her lithe curves." The fragment is thirteen lines composed with Times New Roman; however, the thirteen lines principle bases on Standard Manuscript Format's monospaced typeface, Courier New, for example. Due to writer diction and syntax variants vary word count and proportionate space typefaces cram more words into a line, especially journalism typefaces like Times New Roman, to be content quantity equal, thirteen lines bases on a monospaced typeface and SMF.
The detached outside narrator looks in is a traditional narrative point of view and out of vogue since the 1960s or earlier. The present-day stronger reader preference is for an insider viewpoint persona's narrator unfiltered received reflections. At the least, a middle distance narrator and insider persona merge is fashionable. For that, the narrator's commentary expresses strong emotional-moral attitude, or tone, and reflects a viewpoint persona's received personal sensations, emotions, and thoughts.
Likewise, another narrative craft essential is dramatic movement initiation, irrespective of a length. Novels may start quiet movement, though slow or no movement start is a death knell for a narrative. The aesthetic feature that Hatrack's thirteen lines principle fosters is that dramatic movement initiation.
At the least, dramatic movement starts from an emotional appeal, one of an altered emotional state, for a focal persona and readers alike. This is an emotional disequilibrium that differs from readers' everyday alpha-world metastable emotional states. That would be a quiet start.
What little, if any, emotional empathy or sympathy the fragment evokes is for a young woman's misfortunate state of being: poor, physically attractive, no clue to her personality attractiveness, tattered, hand-me-down apparel, bored retail clerk at an indistinct shop, rainy weather, and window condensate that signals no interior climate control. She's a drudge in a sweatshop, albeit of an indistinct temperature. "So what?" Why should I care? That is the first of our host Orson Scott Card's three questions readers ask of a narrative.
"Oh yeah?" This is believable? Is the second. And "Huh?" What the ---- happens here? The third. The setting description and situation are believable; nothing suspenseful, or curiosity evocation, happens, though. A persona described in physical motion is not per se dramatic movement. Plus, the verbs are mostly to be and similar variant verbs that express a stasis state of being, static voice. This is the way she was, is, will be forever: bored and poor.
Features that initiate quiet to robust dramatic movement are motivations and stakes of a dramatic persona. If she wants, she is interesting and of appeal. If what she wants is fraught with problems and of great stakes risked, dramatic movement hurdles headlong along a roller-coaster track, and appeal is strong. Only first person narratives' narrators can express wants and problems and, regardless, occasion no risks for a narrator as such. However, close narrative distance third-person narrators can receive want and problem and stakes risked forces from a viewpoint persona's thoughts, attitudes, speeches, actions, perceptions, emotions, and sensations.
Want and problem motivation forces are also known as complication or antagonism. Stakes risked forces are also known as conflict. The distinction between complication and conflict forces is complication is any directional orientation, pushmi-pulya every-which-a-way forces, and conflict is expressly polar opposites in contention. For examples, a complication want for money motivation is also a simultaneous problem lack of money motivation; a congruent conflict there is riches and rags, either-or risked until an outcome settles which is gained.
The third dramatic facet is tone, an emotional-moral attitude toward a topic or subject. Whoever holds the strongest attitude is through whom readers align rapport: narrator, if that's the case, or a focal persona for a best practice.
The fragment is entirely an external perception of the weather, a city marketplace, a shop, a woman, her apparel, an outsider narrator's observations, and lackluster at that. A middle distance narrator at least expresses commentary about a focal specimen persona's state of being, events, and setting features, etc. Is her poorness a moral disease? Is her poorness pitiable? Is her poorness heroic? Or similar or different that a narrator's commentary expresses strong and clear?
Or a closer distance absents a narrator to invisible bystander status, who more or less records an insider's received sensations, emotions, and thoughts. For example, the rain for starters. What does the rain signify for the woman? No shop traffic? No sales commission revenue? Another boredom and hunger night?
As is, I have no idea what the scene or chapter or novel is about, other than a static still-life portrait of a woman's routine. Not even the title intimates what could possibly engage me to read further. The physical descriptions are vivid enough for now, though unlively, static, and lackluster and want for the liveliness and lustrousness of drama's motivations and stakes.
Use of the pronoun "It" for weather descriptions is a grammar error, though as common as breath for everyday conversations, a worn-out idiom and tired cliché. The grammar error is no antecedent subject referent given for the pronoun, also known as a syntax expletive: a nonsensical sentence subject placeholder. Syntax expletives are especially problematic for first words. Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities syncrisis usages, among other rhetoric figures, artfully outstrip the expletive error exception, though: "Comparison and contrast in parallel clauses." (Gideon Burton, Silva Rhetoricae, byu.edu.rhetoric)
The fragment contains several other punctuation, diction, and syntax errors, and one number and possessive case error: "the cities market row" //the city's market row//. Otherwise, the grammar is about average for everyday informal essay composition. Prose wants stronger grammar and story craft skills of an apt appeal degree.
Duo[,] The Twin Worlds: Original Soul for the title suggests a new-born soul within a milieu of multiple, sequential incarnations. Missed comma, there. Dual worlds is an ancient concept predicated upon a metaphysical realm and a mundane realm apart, heavenly and earthly, that is. A certain person from history, Opechancanough, brother of Wahunsonacoke (Powhatan), his name means Two Souls, one foot in the spirit realm and one foot in the earth realm. He walked life in both. Might the focal persona for this novel experience multiple incarnations? Or does she walk two or more at the same or sequential times? The latter would hopelessly engage me if set up from the outset instead of a static start.
A bored persona bores me. I would not read further as an engaged reader, due most to lack of dramatic movement initiation. The singular aesthetic purpose for Hatrack's thirteen lines principle is to engage readers to turn the page and read further. This wants, not per se a "hook" gimmick, rather, dramatic movement initiation from the outset, through motivations, stakes, and tone developments.
[ February 14, 2019, 07:59 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by WarrenB (Member # 10927) on :
I'm basically in agreement with extrinsic's comments. Though I did wonder if the sense of stasis was intentional -- something created so it can be disrupted soon after?
The narrator's positioning aside, there are expression issues that would prevent me from reading on if I encountered this in a book shop or on those first pages that Amazon allows shoppers to dip into. But, I am curious about this woman and about what your opening is setting me up for...
I've also found that I learn more from longer fragments. (I'm attempting -- with limited success right now -- a first novel of my own, and engaging with others new works-in-progress, in a bit more depth, is helpful).
So, if you would like a reader of the first chapter, please send it to me (preferably in MS Word/RTF format). I'd be happy to comment if you don't mind waiting a few weeks for me to find a little time.
(It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: your material will be held in confidence. I'm not even writing fantasy at the moment, so our story-worlds probably have very little overlap.)
Warren
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
Thank you extrinsic for that lengthy examination, I think I am understanding what you mean. This is actually my 3rd version of an opening chapter cut to directly introduce the main character rather than my original prologue based "hook" and 2nd world building opener that was evermore boring.
I would also like to say yes, to another comment made, this character will have many incarnations spanning the ages and history of the twin worlds, this is her first life, were it at started, and it was to be a simple start to a not so simple life and every life that followed, lives she alone remembers.
In fact in the prologue that I scraped an unnamed narrator was literally writing the story of the girl in question from a recount of events learned quite possibly from seeing it himself or hearing it from an incarnation of her, though the reader was not to know all of that right off the bat, the narrator clearly is far ahead in the time line of the worlds from were this starts and would have to eventually learn who the mysterious writer was, a bit of a gimmick perhaps but the narrators personal story is not what i was trying to portray, he is only the lore keeper, putting fact to paper for all to remember.
As for WarrenB this is in fact a set up to her simple every day world being turned upside down, and what was once a bleak and boring, but safe life is changed forever. It takes, more than 13 lines to get to that point though not much more than that before things start to change.
I know the First person is how people do things now, I have tried it, but find it hard to work my descriptions into a 1st person view, i like at times to show things that may not be in the characters view or understanding that still occur in the area around them.
As for her poor ratty clothing, that is more to her personality. she is stuck in habits, old comfortable clothing, the ratty old things that she does not care to replace, but that changes as the story moves on and you come to know the parts she hides about herself despite what she puts on display. Its just troubling to get the hook in the first 13. I will have to consider my opener once again. In fact, I think my second paragraph can be switched with my first without altering how i wish the story to sound at this juncture, I will look into it, as it may have the required "hooks" that extrinsic mentioned, or at least I hope.
[ February 15, 2019, 01:54 PM: Message edited by: Demetri Grim ]
Posted by Silkienne Dvora (Member # 11090) on :
Hello Demetri!
I feel like you kept me at arm's length during your first few sentences. It was raining. Add some emotion to the rain from the point of view of whoever tells the story. A dreary, cold rain soaked the streets of the capital, et cetera. There is nothing wrong with a description, you're here to draw me into the story, not tell me what you want to write.
I'm not sure if the woman is your point of view character, I know nothing about her, but that she's youngish and she is looking out at the rain from inside.
As hard headed as I am, and coming from a nonfiction background, it took a while for these guys to beat into me the same kinds of lessons you are learning. One of the best questions I was asked was to describe my story in one sentence, two at the most. It really made me think. You want to let your reader know early what kind of story you plan to involve them in.
The ball's in your court. My story is about "..." Silk
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
To answer that question Silk for this first book, as I cannot tell her story in only one sitting. "My story is about a simple girl who, after crossing paths with a powerful and dangerous man and his pets, will struggle to save those dear to her before everything she is, is taken away."
To that point I am going to move about my opening, I have a viable 2nd passage that can work as a first if switched with a bit of configuring, I will present that as well to see if it works any better.
Hopefully I get the 13 lines right this time as well.
New possible first 13.
She hated the rain. Every year right before the Twin worlds of Duo would align, the capital of Cross would become a swamp in the endless summer rain. Beka sighed and watched the blue and gray roof shingles of the merchants quarter drain the consistent rain in curtains of water onto the cobblestone streets below. Her home at the very end of the merchants row backed up against the perimeter wall of the city's inner barricade separating it from the other districts, most notably the poor quarter just on the other side of the high stone barricade. Heavy ringing of metal being pounded into submission within the shop would normally have been heard echoing over the now empty and half flooded market square this close to the noon tolling. The tall smokestacks of the forge where she lived and worked with her Uncle should be billowing with work in preparation for the coming tournaments.
Posted by Jay Greenstein (Member # 10615) on :
In what is regarded as the worst book opening in history, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, we begin with, "It was a dark and stormy night."
My point: Never start a story with a weather report. If nothing else it may remind the one seeing it of that book. But of more importance, it's an info-dump of history, not story. Your protagonist isn't on stage yet, and your narrator's not in the story. More than that, the reader, on seeing this, will assume that the weather plays an important role in the story. But I'm guessing that it's just what you see presented in the opening shot of the film version because you're thinking visualy.
But ours isn't a visual medium, and learning that it's raining, and has been, is data. No way in hell that a single line of description can give the reader the image you hold in your mind.
We can't use the techniques of film in our medium because it reproduces neither sound not vision (or any other sense), but you're trying to play the role of the camera, as it pans toward that window, and what can be seen in the window.
Think about it. Sight is a parallel medium. As that camera view appears, within less than a second the viewer knows the level of technology, and has a feel for the era. They know what kind of city is is, and the kind of neighborhood we're in. The weather is apparent, as is time of day, and evan an estimate of the season, based on the dress of those who are on the street. To make the reader know what the viewer gets in the time between eyeblinks would take pages of dense prose.
But... Our protagonist isn't paying attention to that because she sees it all the time, so including it would not only take pages of reading, it's irrelevant to her. And fair is fair. It is her story.
Mark Twain had an interesting view: “Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.” So instead of you floating around with your camera, place her center stage and make us know her world as she does.
Does the rain depress her, or does the expected lack of customers come as a relief, a chance to relax? That matters a lot more, to her, than does how long it's been raining.
Instead of telling the reader what can be seen, heard, smelled, etc, tell us what has her attention, and why. Place the reader into her persona, in real time. Make her problems their problems. Make the future uncertain, not something to be explained by someone neither on the scene nor part of the story.
No one worries about what's going to happen when they read a history book because it's a record of completed events, and so, immutable. There's no uncertainty, as the reader views it. But place the reader into her moment of now and the future is uncertain. Give her a problem that must be solved, right now, and the reader has the uncertainty they feed on.
Make them worry and you make them care. Explain the story to them from the viewpoint of a dispassionate outsider and they fall asleep.
You might find this article of interest. It's a condensation of one method of placing the reader into the scene in real-time. Play with it for a bit. It forces you to take her viewpoint into account. And as I see it, the term viewpoint and "showing" are pretty much equivalent.
I hope this helps.
Posted by Grumpy old guy (Member # 9922) on :
I am not engaged as a reader. The scene is static with no movement at all; dramatic or otherwise. Essentially I have ‘someone’ who isn’t involved in the story telling me about how much it has rained. Then, movement: some unnamed woman wipes the condensation off a window--riveting stuff--and we get a fashion run-down of her clothing choices.
I know you promise that something will happen very soon, but the problem is, I won’t be hanging around long enough to find out what that is. Your job as a writer is to capture my imagination with your very first words on the page, not promise me something might happen soon, if I’m patient.
I know, everyone goes on about ‘hooking’ the reader, and they all think this means getting them interested by writing a dramatic scene involving action, conflict or some such. But ‘hooking a reader’ doesn’t mean that at all; it means to grab and hold their attention, or even just simple interest. A well crafted turn of phrase can do that even better than a James Bond style, blockbuster opening.
Finally, a comment. You said, “I know the First(sic) person is how people do things now. I have tried it, but find it hard to work my descriptions into a 1st person view, i(sic) like at times to show things that may not be in the characters view or understanding that still occur in the area around them.”
Let me respond with this quote from Gore Vidal:
quote:Though (Edgar Rice) Burroughs is innocent of literature and cannot reproduce human speech, he does have a gift very few writers of any kind possess: he can describe action vividly. I give away no trade secrets when I say this is as difficult for a Tolstoy as it is for a Burroughs (even William). Because it is so hard, the craftier contemporary novelists usually prefer to tell their stories in the first person, which is simply writing dialogue (my bold). In character, as it were, the writer settles for an impression of what happened rather than creating the sense of the thing happening.
Taken from the Forward to Tarzan of the Apes Don’t have the print impression information handy, sorry.
Rise above your first person doubts and write in the style which suits you. I hope you find some of this useful.
Phil.
Posted by Grumpy old guy (Member # 9922) on :
The convention here at Hatrack when posting additional versions of the original submission is to post them immediately below the preceding version(s) in the original post. That being said, you almost had me interested.
She hated the rain. Who, (the cat’s mother) and why? This almost intriguing opening is then followed by a dreary description of a working-class quarter and its immediate environs. Why? Is it important for me to know all this, or are you just showing off all the hard work you did in world-building the setting for your story? If it’s the latter, I don’t care. Sorry to be harsh about it, but I’m only interested in the results as they pertain to moving the story forward, not all the effort you expended in naming all the plants and creating their horticultural histories.
Again, I am not engaged. But I almost could have been. You really must learn to kill your darlings. Atmosphere is one thing, story is everything.
Phil.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
An illustration of story craft technique based upon the second, pendent version's first sentence:
"She hated the rain."
Who thinks that? Her? Narrator? Writer? The declaration is a writer-narrator filtered tell and of a mime's portentous yet opaque and uninferable implications. The writer tells narrator to tell the woman to tell the writer to tell readers what she feels, rather than shows how she feels about rain. Also, such declarations are static, in that she had, has, does, and will always hate rain. Plus, such motifs are of most appeal if of more than one "argument," that is, the syntax sense of a statement argues she hates the rain.
Essays' sentences other than for creative nonfiction may express a single argument; however, prose wants multiple arguments, a dual or more counterargument to an extant argument. For example, the rain also depresses, scares, and angers her, as well as soothes and delights her. Then the rain becomes an "objective correlative" rather than a throw-away weather declaration and static:
"Objective correlative: the tangible manifestation of an intangible, created and used by the author to help the reader grasp the intangible concept. Most literature is about emotions or ideals — things that you cannot see or touch. So the objective correlative becomes a focus, a tangible surrogate. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the painting becomes the objective correlative of Dorian Gray’s soul — it shows the invisible rot. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester’s child is the objective correlative of her sinful passions.
"An important characteristic of objective correlatives is that they are usually vested with attributes which tilt the reader toward the emotion the author wants him to feel in relation to the intangible being staged. (T. S. Eliot) ['Hamlet and His Problems'; original coin: Arthur Schopenhauer, 'On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason', 1813: 'Matter is therefore only the objective correlative of the pure understanding'.]"
Also:
"Motif. A recurring visual objective correlative [bold emphasis added] of the theme. In Catch-22, for instance, the theme is that war is insane, so the recurring motif is one character calling another character crazy, under a wide variety of circumstances, so that we continually revisit the same element, each time with a different view. (CSFW: David Smith)" ("Being a Glossary of Terms Useful in Critiquing Science Fiction," edited by Clarion workshops' David Smith, SFWA hosted. (A must-read for any prose writer.)
Hence (exaggerated for effect, for conversion from tell to show, leisure attention lavished on the rain motif and argument, defuses the static weather report, and for emotional expression of a melded insider persona/middle distance narrator perspective, plus, off kilter, so as not to usurp creative vision ownership):
//Rain again flooded Wanmere Borough from rooftop to drain to sewer marsh. The deluge drowned the fashion salvage and consignment shop, its alleyway storefront, and fogged the dingy display windows. Downpours tore her moods apart, from fear and anger, from childhood puddle splash delights and rainy day sleep-ins, from blue Monday workdays and bright Saturday night club parties. [Then] She hated rain.//
Mindful a motif ought repeat later, and is a symbol if the emotional substance transforms throughout and exerts different emotional influences later, is an emblem if the motif's repetitions entail identical emotional substance and influence. Also, this is Chekhov's gun, or also foreshadows, pre-positions, that are weather reports' strength.
[ February 16, 2019, 01:18 AM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
A lot to think on in these responses. I need to gather interest in the first few lines. That is clear, wile maintaining my intended scene, i had a notion of a beginning for this character to be no one special, living a slice of life that was destined to never change until fate or power from outside influences change everything.
However I am starting to realize now that perhaps starting off with a dull normal existence, is well just that, dull, no one cares about a dull girls dull day even if it gets better latter. given i have all of 4 months of writing under my belt aside from school driven mandatory essays from 20 years ago, its clear I have a lot I need to work on, this is more than just trying to get my story out, it needs to be something people will actually read, so I will take my time and do both. Get out the story in all that it is, and then make it so it will be read once the idea is out of my head.
Also the link presented gave me sound advice as well, rather pointed out a flaw in my writing logic. The rain, bad, and cliche was only done because I had an image in my mind of the influencing character(villain)coming in from the rain and changing everything for her. Beyond that, its not even needed for the theme of the story or even the goals. I may be adding to much fluff. my personal excuse for this is my typical oral tradition of story telling wants me to paint a picture with as much rambling descriptive information as I can rather than what is needed to show the moment. Much less provide a "hook" or peak interest. Flimsy an excuse as that may be, it is what will keep me from discouragement, as i have my doubt I should even be trying to write in the first place.
But criticism is to break down in order to build back up stronger, I cannot let the truth of things stop me.
So thank you all for the advice, I will work to find the right way, and will take any advice I can get.
Thank you
Posted by Grumpy old guy (Member # 9922) on :
quote:Originally posted by Demetri Grim:
Flimsy an excuse as that may be, it is what will keep me from discouragement, as I have my doubt I should even be trying to write in the first place.
Don’t you dare give up. Okay, so you stumbled onto probably the toughest critique group on the inter-what’s-it. Get over it; your story will torment you forever if you don’t at least try your best to get it out.
Yes, you face a huge learning curve: so did Tolstoy. And Hemingway. And Joyce. I could go on. And, it isn’t as daunting as it sounds. There are only a couple of rules you really need to know in order to write a good story; and they’re more guidelines than rules.
I’d suggest you start by reading three of the best resources on writing on the web; and they're free to download.
Take some time, have a good read and then an even better think. You’ll realise how much you have to learn, and how obvious some of it is when you think about it.
Phil
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
In addition to the descriptive craft texts Grumpy old guy recommends, a model prose text for emulation and perhaps to out do is wanted. Your oral story telling mannerisms and skills are those of a raconteur. Our host Orson Scott Card's Tales of Alvin Maker volumes 1 through 6 is an abundant sample of the type, and the melded insider persona/middle distance, third-person narrator, maybe available at the local library.
A sample excerpt of an Alvin Maker short story "The Yazoo Queen" is available at Orson Scott Card's Intergalatic Medicine Show online.
Several complete Card short stories hosted here at Hatrack, though not Alvin Maker:
For consideration -- not for homework assignments.
Welcome to the whirlwind!
Posted by Silkienne Dvora (Member # 11090) on :
When I asked you to tell me what your story is about, you did exactly as I did when I was first asked. You gave me a synopsis. But that's not what your story is about.
As Grumpy Phil told me,
"The purpose is to focus your mind on who and what will be central to the story. But that's just the beginning; as you'll soon learn. And, your choices now are NOT set in stone. They are subject to change as you get a clearer idea of what your story is really about."
He went on to tell me that plot is what happened in the story. WHY it happened is what the story is about. So, try again. WHY does this woman do anything? What makes her tick? What is the idea central to your story, to her actions?
This particular difference helped me a lot. Also, your opening rewrite was much better, you gave me her innermost feelings! You may be much better at all of this than I am. You started with her feelings and that's what a reader really wants from our medium.
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
I see, I think I get what you asked now that is my story about, not a synopsis but a meaning behind it. I think perhaps winding it down to a single word. I would have to say "control" this is what my story is about, more over who has it, and how people use it, or in this case how one girl looses it.
I may still rewrite my start, it was ..pointed out I quite literally stared with a "dark and stormy night type opening, having just read the first opening of the actual book that is from I realize I have actually opened mine the same way. The damn rain is not even needed in my story any more than it was needed in that infamous tale. A rework is needed... but for now I'm going to keep working towards my 100k and the proposed ending of my first attempt, only 20k more to go and then I will rework this thing, start to finish.
Posted by Jay Greenstein (Member # 10615) on :
quote: She hated the rain. Every year right before the Twin worlds of Duo would align, the capital of Cross would become a swamp in the endless summer rain.
Another weather report. You, someone not in the scene or in the story are telling me that an unnamed “she” hates rain in an unnamed location (and though you clarify, you can’t retroactively remove the confusion the line brings). Why do I care that someone I don’t know feels that way? It’s irrelevant, because I’m not with the protagonist and in the scene. I don’t even know if she’s in that shop you mentioned before or in the house you talk about next. In this version I’m still with the storyteller, not in that town, and hearing generalities for which I have no context, and no desire to learn. Is she standing at the window wishing that it isn’t raining? If so, something must have brought her there that matters to the story. Unless I know what motivated her to act I’m reading a chronicle of events, not her story, because story happens, it’s not talked about. And a chronicle is no more entertaining than any other report.
Put her on stage, where she belongs. Give her something meaningful to the plot to do that will develop character, set the scene, or move that plot (some combination of those is even better). And make her the reader’s avatar, not someone you talk about.
Look at the situation as presented, so far. In the previous version she was wiping the window of a store. But a society advanced enough to have glass windows has sense enough to have paved the streets, and not to build in a swamp.The Romans had cobblestone streets. But glass windows didn’t appear till the early 17th century. By then streets were passible in all weather.
quote: Beka sighed and watched the blue and gray roof shingles of the merchants quarter drain the consistent rain in curtains of water onto the cobblestone streets below.
Forgetting that to have a curtain of water coming from the roof it would take a downpour, not rain, and that rain gutters were invented early, you’re opening the story here. Your reader has mild curiosity that will fade line-by-line unless you replace it with active interest. So how are you doing that? First you give an info-dump of backstory on the conditions at the moment that no one asked for or has been made to want. That’s sort of acceptable, if kept short, because we learn that we’re on a planet other than earth, and the season. But now, we’re watching her watch rain run off the shingles? I can do that by looking out my window on a rainy day. Why would I pay for a story that tells me about something I can do for nothing.
In short: Make it march. Have a Verminous Knid, or a Grue, leap through the window to give her an immediate scene-goal. In other words, start with story, not history and lecture.
quote: Her home at the very end of the merchants row backed up against the perimeter wall of the city's inner barricade separating it from the other districts, most notably the poor quarter just on the other side of the high stone barricade
The story has yet to begin. She's yet to appear on stage. Instead of bring her on and beginning the story, you tell the reader where her house is in a town we can't see and don't know. Why? I don’t plan to visit. If her house was near the center of town, would the story change? Probably not, but given that nothing has happened in the opening scene, I can’t say. In any case, though, not knowing how large the town it, if she has to walk or ride, and how long either takes, This line supplies no meaningful data.
quote: Heavy ringing of metal being pounded into submission within the shop would normally have been heard echoing over the now empty and half flooded market square this close to the noon tolling.[quote] Heavy ringing of metal being pounded into submission within the shop would normally have been heard echoing over the now empty and half flooded market square this close to the noon tolling.
Here, the reader is, literally, lost. We don’t know where we are in the town because we’ve yet to leave your living room. We don’t know what the shop is, what it makes, why there is no pounding, or what it means to her.
Here’s the deal: It’s not a matter of good or bad writing. It’s that in trying to fix the noted problems without adding the necessary tools to your kit, you’re still using the nonfiction writing skills we’re given in our schooldays. And if you use report-writing skills for fiction it will, invariably, read like a report. It has to, because those skills are fact-based and author-centric. You, the author, are explaining the situation to the reader. And because you are, the details that are obvious to you, who already know the story—like what the shop is, and why it not being in operation is meaningful to the plot—you’ll forget to mention it, and did.
I know you want to fix the problem with a few tweaks, and some “don’t do that…do this instead,” suggestions. But writing is, like it or not, as complex and difficult to learn as learn as any other profession. And, learning the skills of the fiction writer is not optional. The longer you futz around trying to make your existing tools do a job they were not designed for, the longer till you’re published.
I truly wish there were an easier way to get there, and an easier way of presenting such news. I also know how hard it is to accept it, given the time and effort you’ve put into the story. I’ve been there.
But it’s not a failing in you or a matter of talent. We all leave our school days believing that writing-is-writing, and we have that part taken care of. So we all face this same surprise on the way to publication, which makes it a rite-of-passage not a disaster. So give it a shot. Spend a bit of time digging out the nuts-and-bolts issues of creating scenes that an acquiring editor, and the reader, will love. What have you got to lose?
For an overview of the issues involved, I’m immodest enough to suggest that my overview articles on Wordpress might help you see what you’re missing, but there are many such available on the Internet. And your local library’s fiction writing section has lots of views on writing fiction available. Give it a try. You may well find yourself slapping your forehead as you say, “But that’s so obvious…why didn’t I see it myself?”
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
quote:Originally posted by Demetri Grim: but for now I'm going to keep working towards my 100k and the proposed ending of my first attempt, only 20k more to go and then I will rework this thing, start to finish.
Good for you! Get it all written and then work on fixing things.
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
I have looked over many of the links and noticed in several cases "Missed" and "Atlantis" for example have very close if not matching structures for opening. More than just the fact they both start with the main characters name. They are both in a familar stile that I can associate with that is not 1st person.
It gives me a good idea of what a working opening for a non 1st person story might have. But I have a question. What is the general opinion of starting with dialogue? Someone other than the main character speaking as the very first line but perhaps speaking to the main character in addition how important is it to describe what the main character looks like if you're trying to have them fit to specific image and not be a shapeless form that the reader embodies does it need to be relatively close to the beginning so that you can imagine who's the main character is as they move through the story?
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Card's short stories linked above, "Atlantis" and "Missed," are of a detached to middle distance third person narrator's outsider looks in narrative point of view -- a Modernism and middle twentieth century conventional narrative point of view. Anymore, that narrative point of view is in decline, though familiar enough for readers' sensibilities. "Homeless in Hell" and "Prior Restraint" are first person and likewise outsider middle distance to insider close, limited first person narrative point of view, again, a somewhat obsolete yet familiar narrative point of view.
A basis for critical analysis of those is how well, if read aloud, readers can follow their raconteur mannerisms. Postmodernism adopted other narrative mannerisms, danger-close insider persona personal closeness of narrative distance emphasis most of all.
A focal agonist's name for the first few words is often a mistake or an inept method of introduction. The consideration is a name given out of the context vacuum gate lacks character development to be memorable and significant. Nouns are far less significant than verbs for significance's sake, and far less memorable, usually. A name like "Hitler," or similar or other idiosyncrasy, say for a given name, however, is amply significant, sort of like the Shel Silverstein, performed by Johnny Cash, song title "A Boy Named Sue" is significant and memorable.
Dialogue right out of the gate is also often a mistake. Speech that sounds out of a disembodied-mind void also lacks context and texture wrap that establishes physical anchors, significance, memorableness, and personality and behavior characteristics for the speech situation.
Grammar syntax principles offer guidance for how to timely name a focal agonist and introduce speakers with apt character emphasis. The true sentence subject of a sentence may not be an agonist. Actually, for best practice, a sentence's action doer is often not a focal agonist; rather, the agonist is the persona done to, affected by, or complicit object of a predicate and subject. In other words, the agonist is in sentence object position.
Another consideration is narrative point of view. If a third-person narrator portrays the action, and is an invisible-detached or invisible bystander middle distance narrator, yet at times has psychic access to personas' thoughts and internal perceptions, then name and dialogue conventions are more relaxed than for the closer narrative distances of third-person, limited, close, or first person. Prose's second person ought best be an auxiliary to first person, reflexive addresses to the self, that is, not implied or actual imperative second person or direct address to readers.
Here's a common syntax mistake, often due to overemphatic efforts to Keep In Touch with a focal agonist (KIT per C.J. Cherryh):
Mikey saw the Life cereal box on the kitchen counter and said, "Mikey like Life."
"saw" there is an extra and unnecessary lens filter. Any term that summarizes a sensation action is a tip-off of an extra lens filter: see, hear, touch, smell, taste, emotionally feel, etc.
The sentence recast for prose syntax principles:
Elder sister set the cereal box from the cupboard on the kitchen counter. "Life like Mikey," he said.
Worse examples of KIT include passive voice constructs, like:
Ginny got beat up by clique girls.
Though no to be verbs there, "got beat up" is to get used for state of being expression. to have, to get, and to be verbs are often used for passive voice expression. The other facet to be mindful of for passive voice is a preposition and object phrase is in the sentence object position: "by clique girls." "by" is the preposition. Or a sentence object is implied and omitted otherwise: Ginny got beat up.
Recast:
Clique girls beat up Ginny.
That above aptly, slyly names the agonist in sentence object position, and evokes a facet of social etiquette for prose appeals: name the self last.
A similar static voice expression uses a to be auxiliary verb and a present-progressive participle main verb.
Clique girls _are beating up_ Ginny.
There, the intent is to show the beating is going on at this moment. "Clique girls beat up Ginny" is nonfinite, though is a simple present tense predicate, and that implies a recent past and completed event. Prose's simple past metaphoric substitution for present tense fits the situation either way. If narrated in present tense, though, convenient habit temptation to use static voice and litter a narrative with nuisance -ing ring rhyme words is strong. Instead, more robust, finite, and definite words are wanted:
Clique girls punched, kicked, and scratched Ginny.
The above are a few areas of grammar distinctions for artful prose ways to set up name introductions and set up dialogue; many more are available. Prose is an apt and artful synthesis of grammar, craft, expression, and appeal, not a mere one or the other at a given time, rather, altogether as much as practical -- more so than for otherwise "expository" essays.
Physical descriptions of personas is a challenge. Often, little is shown about the personas' true nature (personality and behavior), rather, emphasis there is often solely physical appearances, not on more apt characterization.
Here's a puzzler, a "mime" description meant to be fraught with potent subtext though lacks context and texture:
He looked like a clarinet player.
Whats does a clarinet player look like, that is distinct, that expresses personality and or behavior? Somewhat a possible idiosyncrasy, though a mime description. Plus, "looked like" is a probable extra lens filter and static voice.
He flitted fingers along the broomstick as if he played a clarinet.
Apt enough visual sensation, a simile, and of a subjective perception meant to be definite and finite, dynamic voice, that is, though conditional, of a persona's gestures, not per se is a clarinet player; expresses as much about the subject observed as about the observer's personality and behavior, in other words, characterizes both.
Such above methods are among many for how to distinguish a focal agonist from less focal agonists and extras. Insider perception, sensation, thought, and emotion attention-lavished expressions do the intimation and implication magic mischief of whom is whom.
[ February 23, 2019, 01:47 AM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by Jay Greenstein (Member # 10615) on :
quote: But I have a question. What is the general opinion of starting with dialogue? Someone other than the main character speaking as the very first line but perhaps speaking to the main character
If you begin with dialog the reader won’t know either who’s speaking, or—and this really matters—how to inflect the words. You will, because you begin reading knowing the story. So you'll use the proper vocal tone, and hold a mental image of the scene.
What does the reader have? Nothing you don’t either provide, or call up in the reader mind. Suppose you take that into account and begin a story with:
“I love the sound of children at a swimming pool,” Sarah said, as she leaned on the perimeter fence.
Most adults have heard that sound, and been where she is, so the image of someone outside a pool, leaning against the kind of fence they had at their local pool comes to mind, along with the ambiance needed to make it seem real, and that places us within the moment Sarah—who appears to be an adult—calls now. We’ve placed our character in an era and location where they have pools. We’ve given her a name, and a physical situation that brings a mental image. We know the approximate season and weather, and that we’re outside. We’ve established the scene’s ambiance, and shown the speaker’s mood. So, with one line, we know who we are, where we are, and what’s going on—the three things a reader needs in order to follow the action and visualize the scene. And since the comment was, presumably, made to someone nearby, we expect a response. So we enter the scene in Sarah’s viewpoint, with a feel for who we are, where we are, and what’s going on, expecting the scene to continue in real-time.
But suppose we began with:
“You can’t do that, Albert. I won’t allow it.”
Where are we? Dunno. Who are we, and what are we to Albert? Dunno. What’s going on? Dunno. How was the line spoken? Damned if I know. And if the line following that doesn’t both clarify and amplify, it’s a guaranteed rejection, right there.
Agents/editors are busy, and reading queries is low on their list of things they enjoy doing. They open a given query knowing that only about three out of a hundred are written on a professional level—only one suitable for their house. So their frame of mind is more, “Okay, what can I toss this one for?” than, “This may be great.” That means your opening must read in a way that makes them want to go on. Remember, you’re really saying, “Hi! I want you to spend a lot of your money making this ready for publication and promoting it.” You want to be a success, and so do they. But for them to say yes, and take that risk, you can’t be “just as good as” the people they’re publishing now. Those writers have a following. You have nothing but the ability (hopefully) to make a potential buyer say,” “Hmmm…tell me more…”
In practical terms, that means that for you the bar is set higher than for a writer who has demonstrated that s/he can make a profit for the company. So your competition for a publishing slot is their stable of published authors, in addition to all the other hopefuls sunmitting. No way in hell can the writing skills we learn in our schooldays come close to doing that, because they’re nonfiction writing skills.
Above, I mentioned the three things a reader needs in an opening have context. Were you aware of them, and consciously providing them for each scene? How about the things I didn’t mention? Do you know the structure of a scene on the page? They don’t mention that in school, either.
Like almost all hopeful writers, and as we were taught, you’re still thinking in terms of Story, with a capital S. In Story, we think of the whole world in which the events take place, including all the details that make it up to make the reader know that world as you do, and what made the protagonist what they are, including their expectations and desires. But knowing the character as a person is a byproduct—albeit it a beneficial, and even a necessary one—of knowing the character intimately as they live the scene. It’s not the goal.
Does the character make a difficult climb to get where they need to be? Looked at as Story, our temptation is to dwell on how the protagonist, when they were in their twenties, spent several years working in a circus, and define the things that contributed to him/her being the athlete s/he is. The amateur halts the story at this point, for an info-dump of story, perhaps even a flashback, to the point where they learned the skills the protagonist’s using. The pro makes the same point with something like, “Using the skills learned during his time with the circus, Elton reached…” My point is that the only reason for even mentioning the circus is to justify our cheating and giving him the specialized skills to do what must be done. Did s/he love or hate the time there? Who cares? It’s irrelevant to them in the midst of this scene. And anything you include that’s not relevant to the protagonist in real-time living of the scene stops the scene-clock, kills all momentum the scene may have acquired, and literally shouts to the reader: “This isn’t happening, I’m only talking about it.”
You don’t want your reader to learn about the protagonist’s life. You want them to live the story, as that character, and in real-time. You want them to share in their decision-making process. You want them to care about the protagonist enough to share their every emotion.
And no way in hell can our school-day writing skills accomplish that. They’re meant to inform, clearly and concisely. They’re focused on events and descriptions. A story, with that small “s,” is focused on presenting one moment in a protagonist’s life, in their viewpoint, and moving that vantage point forward in time, moment-by-moment, in what is, to the protagonist, real-time.
This article is a condensation of one very powerful way of accomplishing that. Take a look, and think on it till it makes sense. Try the formula given on an existing scene, to see how it forces you to look at the scene as the protagonist. Take a look at a modern, action-focused book (as against one in the literary genre) to see the technique in action.
Trying to use it for your own writing will seem awkward and counterintuitive, at first, because your present writing skills have been practiced to the point where they feel intuitive. But, given that those skills aren’t giving you the result you desire, give this change in approach a shot. Write a small scene, or a rewrite of what you have, making sure that the reader is always aware of the protagonist’s motivation for doing/saying anything. Be certain there is one motivation and only one response, one that links to the next motivation in a natural way.
Polish that trial section, without letting your existing reflexes force you back into explaining the story. Be certain that the narrator never says anything for which the reader needs to “hear” their tone of voice—only in service of the protagonist, instead of being our friendly neighborhood “explainer.” Then, have the computer read that aloud to see if it reads more as the protagonist living the scene than someone talking about it. I think you’ll like the result.
And if the result seems worth pursuing, dig up a copy of the Dwight Swain book the article was condensed from. It’s filled with things like that.
Hope this helps.
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
Thank you for the feed back yet again mo to look at. Ironically I have read that article before, actually before I joined this forum, I have been hunting for information and guidance for as long as i have been writing. Witch is to say only about 5 months. I have done nothing before then,save 20 years ago in school. I have no habits I can think of, or anything set in stone wen it comes to writing. All I have to work with is 20 years of story telling. Without the writing part. Hours upon hours, days, weeks, even years spent verbally telling one story or another to people. That Is to say it was only 5 months ago that I was convinced to give writing a try.
I knew that having a solid opening was key. The hook or first 13 what ever you want to call it. witch is why I have ripped apart my opening 4 or 5 times already to still no avale half of witch done before my posting here. I will continue to find the right tone and voice for my opening passage in a way i can actualy write it. Though it seems that the world insists I switch my perspective on the story told.( a constant push it feels to make it 1st person) But those are the times we are in now, it appears writing has changed from the books I grew up reading. I will persist and continue to refine my opening passage to be a more "educated"( thought I am not particularly educated myself)and less "schooled" in form, format, and function.
Thank you all yet again for the advice and food for thought.
Posted by Princesisto (Member # 11113) on :
The original first sentence wasn't a sentence. It was a comma splice.
The revised version 15.2.19 first sentence was at least written properly. I am not contradicting those who complain that it is an anonymous weather report.
The second sentence, revised version: haven't got a clue what it means. We need all kinds of background about what Duo and Cross etc etc are.
The third sentence, revised version, is a monster! It wants chop-chop.
The fourth sentence, revised version, is Godzilla gone wild. It makes the third sentence look tame.
I like short, clear sentences. Who knows what the critics here might say to that? One critic on another site called my writing "puerile". Never mind that the dialogue I was writing was that of a 9 year old girl (he should have written something like "puellaile" but probably couldn't spell it properly).
After reading this thread, which reminded me of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I am rewriting the first 13 lines of my story: for sure! That's probably a good thing. I certainly learned a lot.
Whether I get the guts to walk those 13 lines through this minefield is another matter . . . .
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
"puellaile"?
Puella, Latin for girl, though puellile, girl-like, characteristic of a girl.
"puerile" English neuter, Latin origin, puerilis, masculine inflection suffix -is, for boy. "puerile," boy-like, characteristic of a boy.
Prose's language uses, especially figurative expression, crave exactitude and full compass of melded connotation and denotation. Expressions that compass contrary connotations are especially exquisite. "puellile" occasions such for negative emotional valence potentials at least as much or more as "puerile."
However, "puella" and "puellile" are not listed in regular English dictionaries, and, therefore, are too obscure for all but a limited Latin savvy audience, except if artfully and timely defined by dramatic circumstances. For example, Latin class Catholic school boy calls boy puellile at recess, a "sissy" taunt perhaps intended as a coy insult. The insulted boy replies, say, "I'm not a girl. You're the girl."
[ February 23, 2019, 05:48 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by Jay Greenstein (Member # 10615) on :
quote:I have no habits I can think of, or anything set in stone wen it comes to writing.
If only... For twelve years of your life, or more, during your school days, you practiced only nonfiction writing techniques, designed to inform your reader clearly and concisely. It was fact-based and author-centric, as is verbal storytelling. Think of what percentage of your assigned schoolday writing was fiction, as against reports and essays. And think of how many of your English teachers were published. If they were giving you what's needed for fiction, doesn't it follow that teachers, who know the subject best, would comprise the majority of new authors?
When we leave our schooldays, our writing habits are ingrained to the point where they feel intuitive. But while that approach works when informing the reader, it does nothing useful if your goal is to evoke the reader's emotions.
Those tricks work for storytelling because it's a performance art, where how you tell the story counts every bit as much as what you say, perhaps more, because the all important emotional content of the story lies in the tricks of vocal and visual acting.
Fiction for the page, though, is character-centric and emotion based. We're not looking to know what happened, we want to live the scene in real-time, as the protagonist, not as an external observer.
And that's where your existing writing habits get in the way. Try to approach the act of writing in another way and you will "know in your heart" that what you're doing is wrong, wrong, wrong. It looks wrong and feels wrong...until familiarity makes it commonplace.
That's why I suggest that you approach the alternative methodology by rote, verifying that there is a motivation for each reaction, because if you don't, you won't notice that you've slipped back into your work-day writing mode.
I came to writing as a storyteller, too. And changing over was one of the harder things I've done in my life. But worth it.
Writing as the outside observer you assign attitudes, motivations, and actions as the plot dictates. And as a result, the characters speak and think according the needs of the plot. Instead of characters living the story in real-time we get explanation and overview—nonfiction. And of more importance, since they have no say in what they do and say, your characters all think with your mind and voice your opinions and desires.
With the opening you presented you were thinking visually, describing and explaining, exactly as we're taught to present things. So it's not a matter of good/bad writing, or talent and potential. It's that if you use nonfiction writing tricks you get a report.
I know how frustrating this can be. I've been there. Before I encountered that Swain book I recommend I'd written six unsold novels and thought I was pretty close to publication. But then, I got a professional critique that literally destroyed me. I was thinking visually, my characters behaved according to pop-psychology—smart when I needed smart and dumb when the plot needed that. And I mean that literally, because that's what I heard on the first page of that critique.
So I can speak from experience, when I say that after you pick up some of the tricks of the pros the act of writing becomes a lot more fun. Your protagonist becomes your co-writer, and will tell you, "Hell no!" when you try to make them do something they don't want to. And if you've not had your characters do that they're not real to either you or the reader.
And the result? The best response I've ever gotten came from my wife, who, while acting as beta reader for, Necessity, came into the den, pointed a finger at me, and said, "You son of a bitch...you killed him..
Making a character that real for a reader is what it's all about. I hope you're hit with same kind of insult. Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
I assume Jay Greenstein distinguishes nonfiction essays' impersonal and instructive report texts, perhaps persuasive argumentation and analysis metagenre text forms, too, from creative nonfiction essay's personal performance story craft prose arts akin to fiction's. Four composition metagenres: performance, report, analysis, and argumentation.
Noteworthy observations readers have expressed about some of my prose is hate, spite, and loathing for anti-contestant agonists. Emotional engagement, nonetheless, rather than disbelief or non-engagement. Helps if protagonist contestants are fully realized rogues, too. Rogues Like Us!?
Posted by Princesisto (Member # 11113) on :
Extrinsic - Yes, you're right. That critic should not have used that word at all and then I would not have invented something worse.
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
I think I'm starting to realize my own misconceptions I had forgotten that a verbal description of something in the military term is often called a report the writing skills in the same fashion as verbal skills would also sound like a report I understand that now. I also note that Jay seems to include in emotion as the primary motivator for a hook I had a motion I think the problem was it was boring and boredom which are not good emotions to have beginning I will try to add something more to a remake of my opener. So I don't exactly want to start it off that's a no holds barred emotional rollercoaster but I can at least try to show that my main character is a spirited individual a little spunky which did not come off that way with my current opening.
It also appears that my topic seems to have gotten a little off course maybe my newest and particularly harsh critic can explain some of the critiques such as chop chop and Godzilla and give me something constructive to work with that would be most appreciated.
Posted by Princesisto (Member # 11113) on :
Sorry, I was not at all meaning to be harsh! I just saw a good introduction to a story buried in verbage, that I thought might be chopped away to make it much stronger.
I never dreamed you might take it as "particularly harsh". As a writer, I would much rather see "Your sentences are too long and complex" than "I am not engaged", "I would not read further", etc.
Here is what I mean by "chop chop" to make your sentences more short, clear and punchy, since you asked.
"She hated the rain. Every year, the capital becomes a swamp in the endless summer rain.
Beka sighed. She watched the blue and gray roof shingles of the merchants' quarter drain the consistent rain. Curtains of water fell on to the cobblestone streets below.
Her home, at the very end of the merchants row, backed up against the perimeter wall of the city's inner barricade. Just on the other side of that barricade was the poor quarter.
Where was the echoing ringing of metal being pounded into submission today? Where was the smoke billowing out of the tall smokestacks of the forge, her, and her Uncle's, home? That is what you would normally hear and see, this close to noon. Ah, the empty, flooded market square, when everyone wants to prepare for the tournament, answers."
I thought you needed to turn the one paragraph to four to get the whole thing clear. Isn't that far more clear? I hope it helps.
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
Well that is one way to look at it. it is crisper, but i dont feel the same conection or voice it once had. simple yes but does not paint the same picutre for me, theses feel like jsut words, partialy famialr as my own but missing something.
Besides I think in my remake of an opening I will shy away from a weather report at all, perhaps a mention to the rain as the fact it is indeed raining and has caused the MC some grief. I am working on an opening that names the MC to a degree, gives who she is, what she does how she feels and gives a hint of her spirited nature in that the rain more a cause of her issues with not doing what she wants to be doing, be that working or otherwise being active, perhaps make it not so much about the rain but the waiting. big celebrations on the horizon, lots of work to do, and the spirited MC is a ball of energy waiting to pop because its all on hold until a certain event shortly after my opener gives her a goal and focus, before that however i can at least try to give the idea of the girls personality, give a hint to the magic that is in my world and make it all about my MC rather than the weather. it may have a part to play but no more reporting if i can help it.
I cannot however promises to make it short or chop chopped as I just don't think that way.
taking as much as i can from the guidance i have been given to make it Emotional, about the MC Not a weather report, or any report if i can help it, pulled in to at least middle perspective rather than 3rd person narration as I think most of the body of my story is middle perspective, based on the article and links I have been provided. I had just chosen for some reason a disimbodied narator at the start, to many movies and a lack of formal traing I think are to blame for that. As well of course to make the first 13 interesting at least enough to make people wonder what comes next. I may not succeed but anything I do now will be better than it was before.
Thank you, all I hope to re post another (version 3 for you, 5 for me) First 13 shortly as I have been working on it diligently sense this all began, and from it will allow me to move the tone of the rest to match once I get down to properly finalizing what I have written. I have not been able to advance my last 20k to 100 word count and mark the end of this first attempt because my mind I overcome with the daunting task a hand and will likely not allow any other output until it is at least, slightly more passable as a opening.
Once revamped do i edit my first passage in this forum topic or re post as a new reply? I think grumpy said re post but I already have a 2nd half way down, should I re post both? so all 3 versions are in my original passage?
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
General Hatrack best practice is to post revisions along with an original fragment post and label each revision, say, first, second, third, etc. Plus, also post a new response that gives notice of a new revision post.
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
Thank you Grumpy said as much, i was not sure if for having 3 i needed to do something more.
On that note. I am posting now my Verion 3.
Certainly an attempt to put the advice given to use, but likely will need more work done.
Posted by Grumpy old guy (Member # 9922) on :
Again I am drowning in narrator summary tell. Where’s Beka? And those last two sentences: new to writing, as you are, you wouldn’t realise that using a reflection in a mirror or some such to describe a character’s facial features is so utterly cliché as to be almost hilarious.
Unsurprisingly, I am not engaged as a reader by this fragment.
My main issue with this opening, apart from the absence of the main character’s POV, is that it bumbles along from a bit of this, a flooded forge, to that, filigree overlay on tourney armour, to the use of arcane runes and so-on. There doesn’t appear to be a set destination in mind. So, I’ll ask the question: Where is this narrator monologue headed, what’s it for?
Why not start with the character in crisis, albeit a minor one. The following is for demonstration purposes only:
Beka stared at the flooded forge and kicked a few errant pieces of charcoal into the cold, dark water. “Told him I did. Yes, told him. Didn’t listen, but. And now what?” . . .
The little bit of dialogue in the example above, whether spoken aloud or as internal thoughts, begins the process of developing specific character traits a reader will recognise later on without the need for attribution--if it is unique enough, without being corny or over-the-top. You don’t do this sort of thing for every character (and not in all stories), but it is another tool in the armoury of the writer.
Hope this helps.
Phil.
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
Hi Dimitri. Sympathies.
It is very difficult for me to like any description of setting. So it's somewhat unusual, but I liked "a frayed, oil covered sleeve wiped condensation from the inside of a store’s large front window." It's a lovely image. I'm hoping you have a talent for creating mood.
(I get that it's inconsistent with her point of view, so it probably isn't practical.)
I am, apparently like many people here, wanting something different. I wanted to ask which books you like.
Anyway, a somewhat tired message by this point: "Beka hated waiting" is a typical opening. Good so far. "as the apprentice and niece to the capital of Cross's most well-known blacksmith Montgomery Galten," is an information dump. I don't care, and I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with the information.
A start is always mysterious. I would rather you fill it in with action, with information as needed.
"she should be working". I have no trouble with this. Nornal.
"or at the very least designing filigree for a local knights tournament armor" I don't understand why this wouldn't count as working. I don't know what filigree is, I just don't know the word; I don't know what the local knights tournament armor is." As I said, I'm no fan of detail.
The next two sentences are a flashback. That might be common, but it worries me in terms of getting your story started.
If I understand you correctly, your story has a lot of promise. Properly told (IMO), it would have a relatively boring first chapter establishing her character, which sounds interesting, then a man walking in and changing everything. Agree? I think that's how you said you see it in your mind.
I would like to see you write that, but the "boring first chapter" is a challenge to write, because it can't be boring. There are tricks (like a dead mouse in a coat pocket).
That type of start doesn't work well for having an exciting 13 lines. It might be impossible in the 2019 publishing milieu, which I know nothing about.
I liked "All she can do is wait, wait and" Um, that skill can't be taught. (Or if you are copying from someone -- nice copying, and that skill can't be taught either.)
So, to be honest, I see a light within you, and I don't know how you hold onto that light and yet incorporate some of the criticisms here which are apt. But I'm hoping for you.
[ February 27, 2019, 06:52 PM: Message edited by: EmmaSohan ]
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Third version: A bland outsider narrator summarizes and explains a back story of an individual observed.
The craft flip from reporter narrator summary and explanation to insider viewpoint experience movement is a challenge for creative writers -- if that is the narrative point of view intent. A bland narrator is also a challenge to flip to strong narrator emotional-moral commentary. Even strong emotional-moral commentary is a great challenge, part due to readers' morality will not be lectured at.
L. Rust Hills observes that an energetic narrative, Aristotle's "energeic," discovers a viewpoint persona's personal moral truth. Through trial and error, moral transformation occurs in a deep subtext dimension action, as well as a tnagivle action surface text. The fragment's sole intimated moral is patience, opposite of wrath. Does the fragment express to readers, Be patient, I'm getting around to _It_ soon? Huh? Oh yeah? Why should I care? Whatever "it" is.
The sum of the fragment's content is the "Stuck in a bathtub" cliché, and contemplates the proverbial navel. Ennui and angst attend, and nothing can transpire, not even a decision, due to no present contention from which to launch dramatic movement.
Another cliché in the fragment is use of a mirror reflection observed to describe the viewpoint persona self's physical appearance. Consider all viewpoint personas akin to vampirae; those visions do not mirror a self from reflective objects. Best practice for self-descriptions is use of dramatically charged incidentals and apt idiosyncrasies and that suit the action at hand. Not Turkey City Lexicon's cliché, though:
"Funny-hat characterization
"A character distinguished by a single identifying tag, such as odd headgear, a limp, a lisp, a parrot on his shoulder, etc."
Gray eyes, freckles, red hair? How could those be dramatized characterization? Freckles are associated with impetuous youth and red hair with fiery temperament. Gray eyes holds no similar symbolic representation, other than a vague sense of neutrality.
Otherwise, a dramatic situation is wanted, between another participant observer and Beka, perhaps, that describes appearance as incidental and develops the greater apt substances of personality and behavior characteristics. The former, physical appearance, is incidental and superficial; the latter, personality and behavior characteristics, are sublime and the true import substance of characterization. Mindful incidental items are a stepstone to characterization and potential motif-symbol substance and objective correlatives that intimate the wanted emotional drama of parts and parcels.
Each tell sentence of the fragment could be expanded to several paragraphs or more of show. Even a stuck-in-a-bathtub persona could be shown more artfully and through more apt dramatic development. The back story recap of prior events could be incidental to Beka's attempts to dry the forge, restart the fire, and, meantime, her comments, thoughts, and actions be fiery and impetuous, tempered with neutral patience and tolerance of Uncle's errors, which are implied as much her fault or more than his.
Realism splashed into prose about mid nineteenth century, became Modernism and Postmodernism since. One facet spans the several and is distinct from prior literary culture movements: reality imitation emphasis (show, mimesis per Aristotle and many others since). Prior literary movements emphasized morality tableaus and historical pageantry circumstances, asserted moral laws, that is, risked hypocrisy, are hypocrisy of Do as I say, not as I do. Reality imitation emphasizes tangible, material, concrete incidentals as representational of emotional-moral expression and transformation intangibles (deepest subtexts).
So red hair? Fiery impatience? Flooded forge? Drowned fire? Describe hopes-drowned Beka's efforts to dry the forge and impetuous and impudent slams about the place. Might wet cinders stain her hair black? She thinks about hair dye; but no, nothing she can do about the freckles. Or is there?
She curses her contrary thoughts. She is who she is and likes herself as she is, well, somewhat. She likes her potentials though is far from their realizations. She is fire-quenched servant Cinderella at a drowned blacksmith's forge, for now.
Several missed apostrophes. Those and this are fatal flaws, ones that screeners and editors stop at: "uncle has lying" a lie-lay mistake. //uncle has laying//
An advice or guidance for adult grammar learners, especially creative writers and editors, is keep a common-error notes journal, paper or digital. Lie-lay is one found in many. Comprehensive dictionaries cover such usages and are a ready reference to aid proofreader revision adjustments. Sit-set is another, its-it's, anymore (adv) - any more (adj), and about a few hundreds similar others. An editor's toolkit also includes an up-to-date one word, multiple words, or hyphenated words reference. My composition reference bookshelves contain 12-plus linear feet of texts, plus all of online's infinite resources.
Though some more apt descriptions, closer though confused and inconsistent narrative distance, and clearer reality imitation for the third fragment, as is, I would not read further as an engaged reader, due in the main to the fragment rehashes prior unrealized events in a summary, static, nonfinite, and indefinite manner.
If those events matter, consider expanded, personal to Beka's intimate, dramatic experiences of them in their now-realized moments. Those could as easily and artfully be later events, too. If started from Beka's plans, and their ruination by Uncle's contrary agenda and motives, yet Beka is situated in the forge, is the occasion to show her true present state of being, emotion, personality, behavior, morality, in contest now and subject to further pendent transformation movement.
[ February 28, 2019, 12:42 AM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
I had my doubts about that reflected mirror thing but I put it out anyways I probably knew it was cliche because it was familiar I should have known better I can easily work her physical descriptions into the passages that come after this first 13 in the form of gestures that acknowledge a particular trait. Rather than just putting up her entire description in a single chunk. I have an immediate interaction between her and her uncle in the very next Passage I'm just having issues with giving what's required in the first 13 to hook for lack of a better term.
I knew this one was going to need more work though going into it but at least I have gotten away from a third person weather report even if it still needs a little help bringing it into the character while still maintaining the atmosphere and some of the imagery though I Lament the loss of much of the imagery I originally had. that just means I will have to find other places to put it back in.
I will attempt to add more emotion, energy, or motion to the scene of the first 13 perhaps by pushing farther into the stories passages where there is more dialogue and motion and less narration and find places father into the story to provide character descriptions as I imagine I have a good portion of the beginning of the book to describe the main character I don't need to do it in one first paragraph.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Imagery's full substance for prose is similar to symbolism's, that is, tangible, material, concrete visual motifs that symbolize and dramatize emotional-moral intangibles and abstracts. The Biblical "Burning Bush" and flame tongue represent godly wisdom that is "hot" to the touch, for example. Touched with the eyes, so to speak.
Hence, a visual description, any sensory description that matters, best practice depicts more than a physical substance, also intimates or implies abstract and dramatic substance. A fantastic fiction faction, though, resents obvious symbolism, except when symbolism is an irony target that scorns and ridicules symbolism. Go figure. So conventional symbols, like red hair for fiery temperaments, are ripe for re-innovation and accessible obfuscation (deep subtext).
Say, a long-ago traditional symbolism for the color red, the color of blood, is a representation of life energy. Paleolithic and neolithic peoples painted red hands on cave walls to signal the number five alive. One red hand below a deer means five live deer. White for death. Black for ancestor spirits. Yellow for sickness. Green for plant life. Blue for sky spirits. Brown for earth. And so on. Red ocher dust lined in a grave was believed to enliven a deceased in the afterlife.
Contemporary color symbolism differs markedly. Red: violence, fire, danger, communism, etc.
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
Fire is indeed an aspect of Beka or rather "embers" or "an ember", cool enough to touch perhaps but will still catch fire if left unattended, usually found after a fire has died down, but can be rekindled back to life and a roaring fire, in some ways if a fire is never left to die out all the way does the embers in the hearth ever truly go out? Yes technically they do, but this is fantasy, so symbols abounds and the fire never dies. Though it does not come up per-say in this 100k worth of book, it is planned to be a part of things to come literally a phoenix rising from the ashes and an ember of one girls soul that never can be extinguished. Not that I can get all that in the first 13 hook, but there it is, I can work to at least hint at such a thing, at least in personality for now.
And to Emma's comment about copying, no? That is not copying, it just sounded good in my head. I am not completely sure what you mean by "that skill can't be taught" I want to take it as a good thing but, I am a little wary given how things have gone on this forum so far.
At any rate I am looking to limit, or alter the flashback aspect in exchange for motion and start of conversation. as well as useless info dumps in the first passage i can save a few of them for once some one is invested in reading the drivel. I am hoping it will be received well, just hard to fit all the parts needed in 13 lines without it feeling to, abrupt, I would have to say. At least to my ear when reading it back.
[ February 28, 2019, 10:02 PM: Message edited by: Demetri Grim ]
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
Now Posting Version 4, decided to skip right to the interaction with her uncle this time, some motion, some dialogue, hopefully a hint of personality, and still a bit of description of the MC. To me it does not paint as much of an image in my mind, but all my other attempts at doing so have not gone over well, perhaps this will be closer to were I need to be? I am honestly not sure how much more I can take.
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
First, a start of static description (your #1) is normal. The third book I picked up today had setting for a page. So we can't really criticize it, though they might always be wrong. Or I am now thinking it might suit your strengths. I don't know.
I don't like such starts, they seem to be old-fashioned, and you might have just thought they were how a book should start. So it was also natural to say something.
Second. If all you cared about was selling your book, I would suggest one start; if all you cared about was writing a good book, you already figured out the best start; and if you want to kind of do both, that's probably a third start. So there's a lot of conflicts and no right answer there either.
Third, there is an issue of starts and an issue of how you wrote your book with this as our only sample. I liked the image of her tilting back in her chair, and I normally don't like images. But you wrote "rocking". Why?
Fourth, you have to have a sense of what you think is right. Or else you are lost. Even if advice is right, things can go wrong. (For example, that (#4) wasn't the conversation anyone envisioned you starting with.)
Have you finished your book? I am willing to look at what you have so far.
I didn't like the description of rain in the town, but I liked the sense of her penned inside by the rain. It was moody. I somehow like the descriptions as a sum.
Questions?
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
Well, to be honest I am trying to develop a strong start, not just to sell but what is needed to capture and engage a reader, I may like long winded scenery description but that does not always fit what catches peoples attention, so I whittle down to what I think is expected of a good start. The conversation with her uncle was to be the middle of the fist chapter, to develop the relationship between the two of them and set up for the antagonist to walk in on them and set things into motion. it was to be a sort of stable simple uneventful life for Beka Until the powerful and dangerous man enters her world and changes everything. sort of a classic all be it cliche humble origins beginning.
The rocking in the chair is to imply motion, creaking back and forth on the hind legs of a chair is both risky and reckless not to mention bad for the chair legs, its to imply she wants to be in motion but cannot, she is a spirited girl and trapped at the moment with a job she cannot get away from be it the rain or simply duty to her family. Its just hard to get that all across in the first 13 lines, it seems Im required to do. the proverbial "why do I care"
As for finished, no...I have become stagnant, I was doing over 1000 words a day before I joined this forum, now,,i bang my head against the first 13 lines fruitlessly hoping I can discover a Rosetta-stone of sorts to aid my writing and carry it on into the rest. I know once i have a tone, flow, and design i can emulate and spread the format and texture of the passage into everything that comes after it. but I cannot find the right path to take it seems. i do not take steps forward or backwards in this endeavor only side to side. as such my book remains at 80,000 words, and most of it needing a solid editing no doubt if the first 13 are an example. I would be willing to share of course what i have ( not sure how exactly but what I have I am willing to share none the less at the moment my story remains un-edited until I have finalized a working start and will sweep the content into matching shape from there at a latter date.))
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
A high-spirited and trapped persona is ripe for show and drama, yet the fourth version tells that and then deviates into a sentimental social pleasantry scene.
A division of sentence types might illustrate distinction between show and tell: declarative, state of being (static, stasis), and process. Each version's first sentence or so is declarative and static. Prose prefers process statements. "A small metal link bounced off the back of her head." is a process statement. Though how Beka can see the metal link at the back of her head to describe it is illogical and a viewpoint glitch. Must be narrator-writer voice-over and blocks the true action processes, then, though little, if any, narrator identity development.
"she sighed" is an empty process statement. What are the emotions of a sigh? Sighs are mime descriptions, fraught with import though undeveloped and vague, devoid, if at all, of any meaning.
More examples of confused and mime sentence types:
"Turning cool light grey eyes over her shoulder, she glared at her attacker." Declaration (physical description), static (nonfinite, indefinite present progressive participle), and process, though of an extra lens filter and pregnant, empty visual sensation mime "glared".
"Tucking a [strand] of _wild red hair_ behind a _slightly pointed ear_." Fragment, process, declarative, static, and mime and overwrought.
The mirror reflection is gone, though the reflected descriptions remain and are overwrought, too many descriptor attachments and mimes that force emphasis away from active processes. "cool | light | grey | eyes", and who sees that and all of the visual sensations? Beka cannot see herself or her eyes.
Again, here:
"'You did not just…' _her melodic voice_ was cut off _as_ another link bounced off _her freckled cheek_." A dash for interruption wanted instead of the ellipsis points. "as" used for a coordination conjunction, causes a run-on sentence, an illogical and inverted cause-effect sequence, and a not-simultaneous mistake.
"'I said_,_ quit sitting in my chair that way[,] girl!'” One stray comma and one missed. To say verbs that precede what was said take no punctuation separation. Verbatim or paraphrased, maybe might, dependent upon syntax.
//"I said quit sitting in my chair that way, girl!"//
//"I said, 'Quit sitting in my chair that way,' girl!"//
//"I said, girl, quit sitting in my chair that way!"//
//"Quit sitting in my chair that way, girl! I said."//
//"Quit sitting in my chair that way, I said, girl!"//
//"Girl, quit sitting in my chair that way! I said."//
Etc.
"Her uncle met her glare with one of his own, before his face cracked into a _wide grin_, partially obscured by his _thick red mustache_."
Confused syntax, middle clause out of sequence, again, more so for mime physical description declaration than process emphasis (dramatic movement). Another overwrought description, further overwrought by the adverb "partially." Prose wants is or isn't, obscured, for example, or similar other incisive description, not emphatic description as soon defused of emphasis, if any, as given.
I would not read further as an engaged reader. "as," there, aptly used for correlation of closely related ideas.
Test of "as" for time correlation: substitute while or when for "as." "was cut off [when or while] another link bounced" Illogical sequence, not simultaneous either. The second link struck then that caused her speech cutoff. Or test conventional correlation conjunction and, "was cut off [and] another link bounced". (Trivial passive voice sentence, too. "was cut off [by] another link bounced".) Inapt and inept "as," those.
Otherwise, for prose, "as" correlates closely related ideas, _as_ above, "would not read further as an engaged reader," or correlates appositive content to a main idea. Plus several conventional idioms and rhetoric figures: as soon as, as far as, as to, as is, as given, as such, as heretofore, etc.; similes, as [soft] as, as if, as though, as like, etc.
The correlative conjunction and appositive content uses: He brought lard to the fish fry, _as_ was his wont. As she would always, Martina refused lard-fried seafood. Gibbon, as usual, laid an eager appetite into the lard foods and their wicked pleasures. In other words, for prose, "as" aptly emphasizes commentary enhancements, not kludges together unrelated ideas and forces non-simultaneous action processes.
[ March 04, 2019, 09:20 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by Grumpy old guy (Member # 9922) on :
Now, I am engaged; grammar errors notwithstanding. I even want to read on.
Phil.
[ March 04, 2019, 01:52 AM: Message edited by: Grumpy old guy ]
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Demetri Grim, please don't let the 13-line rule on this forum make you stagnate.
You can post the first 13 lines of each chapter, did you know that?
You don't have to get the first 13 lines of the first chapter perfect before you can continue working on the novel.
Let it go for now. Get back to finishing the rest of it.
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
Trouble is I cant focus on the ending, my mind drifts back to the problem at hand at the very start much less my ending, witch leaves off on a cliffhanger and link into book 2.
I can only hope to try and focus on the start simply because I can then use the cadence, tone, design, and feeling of the starting point and sweep down through the rest of the story much a kin to a plague to make it match structurally. It feels like if I continue working at it as is, its very much like practicing something the wrong way.
I know many like to quote here so ill add one as well, "Its easier to prevent bad habits than to break them." - Benjamin Franklin
I don't want to embed bad habits by pressing on ignorantly. Not to mention the changes so far have forever changed the tone, cadence, and many possible interactions throughout the entirety of what I have already, i have to rebuild the entire structure of the first chapter and likely into the second before things stabilize. It would be easier to repair and replace 80,000 words than the 100,000 goal ( based on researched fantasy novel average and suggested lengths. I can easily do more than 100k worth of stories but will be trying to split this into many books rather than one encyclopedia, granted I recover and return from this learning experience.)
Regardless am posting a Version 5 of my first 13, based on the latest advice.
[ March 04, 2019, 06:23 PM: Message edited by: Demetri Grim ]
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Stronger and clearer dramatic action for the fifth version. Still a few grammar errors and craft shortfalls, which I will enumerate once I catch up on today's work queue. I have promises to keep and pages to go before I sleep. (Paraphrased from Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," now a public domain property; copyright lapsed 1/1/2018.)
One observation for now, though: What is Uncle's name, one that entails commentary and symbol or emblem maybe? The uncle name that I consider one of the more appealing from all of prose is Mark Richard's "Strays" "Uncle Trash." An obvious insider nickname, commentary, and emblem motif, the rhetoric figure is metonymy: an attribute stands for a whole. The short story is a model tragic farce narrative. About two thousand words, PDF hosted by Evergreen U.
[ March 04, 2019, 09:51 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
I put up some webpages on starting with "action", which is what you're now doing, and on the "life as normal" start, which you are still doing.
Um, I have no credentials except that I thought about starts for two months and I'm careful and diligent. So it's just something to think about.
An individual and a family member, one sends barbs at the other, so to speak.
More appeals if they traded barbs and if their ambivalence were more clear. Ambivalence: simultaneous, contemporaneous, or sequential and contrary, contradictory, or congruent opposite attitudes or emotions.
1st sentence. "Beka hated waiting[.] [A]s an apprentice blacksmith in the capital[,] she should be working."
Declaration summary tell first clause, a summation or conclusion at the outset. Fused or run-on sentence. Punctuation errors. Two present progressive -ings, the first a gerund noun; the second, a verb. Several more trivial -ings throughout the fragment.
The "as" conjunction word is unnecessary; omission doesn't change meaning. "working" is a non-definite word. Even if an -ing word, forging, for example, is more definite, smithing, hammering, forge welding, etc., a smith's activity for definite definition, for sensory stimuli cues for readers' sakes. Still non-finite, though.
A consideration for present progressive verbs and gerunds thereof is they are nonfinite, express an infinite time span of at least present and future process continuation, maybe immediate or recent past forward as well. Present progressive participle gerunds also express indefinite and non-finite time spans and subjects.
If the clause, "Beka hated waiting" was instead a show or reality imitation, the clause would sum up a prior self-description of Beka's fidgets, sensations, thoughts, emotions, and such. Even reversal of the sentence clauses is more dynamic, plus other minor adjustments, for illustration:
//An apprentice blacksmith in the capital, Beka should be at the forge work on the anvil. She hated long waits.//
2nd. "Rocking her chair back on its hind legs[,] she sighed_,_ with boredom."
Again, convoluted syntax and diction, missed and stray punctuation. A prefatory, dependent participle clause takes comma, or dash, separation, per standard composition principles. Present progressive participle clauses, as above (non-finite and indefinite), prose grammars ask for stronger tense reconsideration.
One rhetoric principle for syntax sequence involves force progression. From low force to stronger is auxesis; from strong to low, sort of trails off at the end, is catacosmesis. The 2nd sentence, as is, evinces no movement either direction, due to little, if any, emphasis pattern from the several parts. Prose favors auxesis, one method of which is strong, finite, and definite diction and syntax that progresses in strength.
Sighs are non-volitional responses to stimuli, unintended and non-voluntary. Sighs escape, erupt, explode from sighers' lips. The sigh there does not take comma separation from its qualifier "with boredom." Preposition error there, also. //from boredom.//
A feature of auxesis is a triplet of force movement descriptions for appeal: one, Two, THREE.
The sentence recast for demonstration of the above facets:
//Bored, she rocked her chair back on its hind legs, fluttered hands for balance, and blew a raspberry sigh.//
3rd. "Suddenly[,] something hard bounced off the back of her head_,_ and clattered to the floor."
Conjunctive adverbs (Suddenly), there, a sentence adverb (modifies an entire sentence or clause) separated from their main verbs (bounced) take punctuation separation. Sentence adverbs are always weak for prose, especially "Suddenly" or abruptly and similar that tell how immediate a surprise event is. Words and syntax best practice do the surprise show mischief instead of preemptive tells.
The sentence is a predicate doublet list, doesn't take comma separation between the two predicates. A predicate triplet is wanted or a subject for the second clause.
Does a metal link clatter or clang or bang or other onomatopoeia? A matter of definiteness again. "_to_ the floor"? another preposition error: on or maybe off or from. Likewise definiteness for "floor." What, brick, earth, gravel, tile, stone, wood, etc., floor?
4th. "Tucking a [strand] of wild red hair behind a slightly pointed ear, she huffed indignantly."
Now a fourth sentence of invariant syntax (a prefatory dependent present progressive participle clause and a main clause), invariant force emphasis, confused which of the two is the more emphatic expression, and a lackluster declaration. Another pesky -ing participle non-finite, indefinite verb, and -ings accumulate an -ing ring rhyme nuisance if of short succession and pervasive presence without force value. Misspelled word "stand." Two empty -ly adverbs. Overwrought descriptions, and a mimed, narrator-told emotion, "huffed indignantly".
Consider this or similar other (simple past tense participle, dependent clause, force movement):
//A stray strand of fiery hair tucked behind an elfish ear, "huh-uh," she huffed for the rude spite.//
Though "huh-uh" is a nonsensical discourse marker, an onomatopoeia, at that, a dictionary term, the term means no -- like, oh no you didn't. There, too, that's an expected, natural response to an object cruelly thrown at her blind side, occasions set up for sequential ambivalence development.
5th. "Turning light grey eyes over her shoulder, she glared at her attacker."
Fifth sentence of invariant syntax. Overwrought description, and another mimed and narrator tell. How might an eye description be as much or more Beka's self-description as the narrator's, show her momentary temper flare, and express as much or more than as is? The forge is an ironworks. Iron analogies are apt for "light grey eyes". steely, noun, a game-play marble made of steel, for example, a ball bearing (-ing though). "steely" also implies the glare and occasions a more dynamic force emphasis substitution for "she glared at her attacker." "at" is an inapt preposition, like Uncle and Beka bandy a badminton shuttlecock.
By the way, "grey" is a British Commonwealth dialect variant; gray is a standard U.S. dialect variant, and otherwise is primary to secondary Northeast regional "grey" uses. If one or the other is intended, less dialect ambiguity if other British variants timely show forth or the U.S. variant does otherwise.
Demonstration:
//Steely eyes sighted over her shoulder, she darted wrath toward her attacker.//
Also, that sentence wants a paragraph break beforehand and closed up to the next paragraph. The fifth sentence connects and leads more so to the dialogue paragraph.
6th. "'You did not just[--]' her melodic voice was cut off by a link of chain bouncing off her freckled cheek."
The Standard Manuscript Format (typescript) dash is two hyphens (--). Spaces bracket the reporters' dash hyphens: journalism and stenography ( -- ). A few prose digests want three hyphens and no space brackets for readymade search and replace all three-hyphen dashes (---) with Standard Publication Format's em dash (—). En dash that means "through" or "to" for joined numbers (e.g., pages 12–21), em dash for interruptions and changes of thought direction.
The syntax is convoluted, nonsequential chronology. Beka speaks, the second link strikes her cheek, interrupts her speech.
Though only one modifier per noun there above, the modifiers are given only to describe Beka's physical and static appearance from an outsider's perspective, to tell narrator to tell writer to tell readers.
What type of chain link? Chain mail? Fence? Anchor chain? Etc?
Four preposition connectors for the sentence: "off," "by," "of," and "off." Preposition disease. The two "off" are adverb/preposition particles of two-word verbs, "cut off" and "bounced off." The "by" is a preposition giveaway of passive voice, and unnecessary passive voice. "of" is often a wordiness signal. The sentence could be simplified and more forceful if the interruption dash and the cause of the interruption showed forth alone.
Demonstration:
//"You did not just--" A chain mail link struck her cheek.//
7th. "'Quit sitting in my chair that way. Ya fool girl!'"
Apt, even the present participle "sitting." For dialogue, such shows the intellectual and literacy status of a speaker, characterizes, that is. For the dialogue use, a best practice is to save such less than artful terms so their contrary emphasis shows forth for speech and thought, less, if at all, for narration.
Likewise, the "Ya" colloquial idiom substituted for conventional you is characterization and onomatopoeia -- how Uncle pronounces the word.
Often, exclamation marks are overdone and, hence, spoil emphasis. There, the use is apt, mindful exotic punctuation overuse, misuse, and abuse (dashes, semicolons, colons, ellipsis points, exclamation points, parentheses, braces) too easily become convenient punctuation acrobatics habits. Best practice is for the words and syntax to do the heavy emphasis and force lifts.
8th. "Her Uncle, the culprit of the attack[,] met her glare with one of his own."
If "her uncle," is a common noun, lower case uncle. If a name or title, then "Uncle" without "Her." Best practice is to give him a name or nickname, as above in the prior post, "Uncle Trash." For example, if he's not a kin uncle, then a nickname that implies such would be exquisite, and ideally of an ambivalent nature that shows both affection and contrary emotion. Say, Uncle Dutch, inversion of Dutch uncle and invokes Dutch treat. Hah, that's the kind of fun and hi-jinx of nicknames that appeal. Or similar other attribute of the man that someway characterizes him somewhat for now.
Do readers need to be told that Uncle is the source of the flung link? "glare" and the like are tells, narrator extra lens filter tells, and are mime actions. Yes, eyes are windows to emotion and hearts, yet a glare is as meaningless as a sigh.
A cliché that was once a potent verbal metaphor illustrates how artless a glare named rather than shown is: glared daggers. Similar: pop-eyed stare, bug-eyed menace, sinister eyebrows arched. Each tells an emotion rather than shows a foreground emotion and related ambivalence.
A larger consideration is who sees and reports the visual sensation of the glare? Not Beka, she cannot see herself glare. Not Uncle, though he can see and report Beka glares, and not see himself himself glare, though he's not the viewpoint persona. An invisible, remote narrator could see and report each's glares. A middle distance narrator may trade reciprocal sensation and report from Beka's received reflections of sensations and responses. However, the apparent narrative point of view intent is of a narrator's unfiltered reflections received from viewpoint persona and agonist Beka.
9th. "It faltered a heartbeat [later], his face cracking into a wide grin under a thick red mustache."
"It" is a problematic pronoun, due to antecedent subject referent challenges. It who, what? Beka's glare? Uncle's glare? Both? Or other? Yet another visual sensation, the-eyes-glares-say-all mime.
Misspelled word "latter," later.
Does a glare falter? Or does a glare fade, erode, vanish, dissolve, and another emotion as soon replace the glare? A stronger, more finite and definite verb eliminates the need for a "heartbeat" time reference. A more apt expression is wanted either way. Fixated on eyes, might as well be an eyeblink as a heartbeat.
"his face cracking into a wide grin" All of his face cracks a grin? Much real estate for a mere grin. Cheeks and mouth maybe, what, eye's twinkle an impish grin? Forehead and brows furrow? Somewhat away from the mime eyes, anyway. Still mime.
Mimes are fraught with portentous though undeveloped emotional expression description: mime eyes and faces expressions, speech, nonverbal expression, nonvocal expression, sensations, events, etc.
Another -ing present participle, "cracking."
"into" a useless preposition, could be omitted and change nothing. "under" a preposition error, behind maybe, or through.
"wide grin" and "thick red mustache" overworked description. A grin is a grin; a smirk is a smirk; a sneer is sneer. A smile could be thin, limned, thick, wide open, wide, or broad. Still, those descriptions add little, if any, to the scene. Consider other or added sensation descriptions, say, chuckles, laughter, snort, gag, aural sensations, that is. Plus, mindful, that sensations, responses, emotions, and thoughts may be expressed aloud. Re the above "huh-uh" response to the first chain link strike.
For that matter, does the forge smell of coal ash? Cold coke fire quenched? Sulfurous and nacre salty odors (burnt gunpowder)? Textures, too, tactile sensations perhaps felt by eye or ear, that suit the scene's import. Gritty brick floor that crunches under sandal foot? Lanolin, from Uncle's greasy hair, polishes the oak? chair's headrest? Visual, aural, tactile, olfactoral, gustatoral, and emotional sensations that enhance the scene's reality imitation and progress dramatic force emphasis, rather than a few mostly eyes empty mimes.
10th. "Beka shook her head at him and could not help but grin back."
Away from the eyes again somewhat, still in the same general area. Variety spices prose. An "at" mistake; this fragment is badminton back-and-forth volleys played with dud hand-grenades. At the least, add more dynamic dialogue, aural sensation, fraught with armed hand-grenades ready to detonate any moment. Sensation and location variety would do mischief wonders, too.
//Beka shook her head, smirked. "Uh-huh, yeah," she said, for all his childish follies.//
The standout for me of the fragment is a more dynamic byplay between Beka and Uncle, that their interaction might go off any moment. Instead, the scene defuses the bomb that is set up. Notable that sibs "antagonize" each other when they're bored and carry on to an extreme escalation. Beka somewhat antagonizes Uncle, the way she sits the chair. Uncle antagonizes Beka, twice. Tension set up, tension relief delayed, tension defused rather than partial relief and prep for further tension entrainment.
I would not read further as an engaged reader.
[ March 06, 2019, 01:32 AM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by Demetri Grim (Member # 11111) on :
Heavy brow hits cheap faux wood desk. Whispered words, not for any but the speaker to hear. “Rosebud.” Classic, cliche, overdramatic, perfect. A death rattle, the stink of waste released. Whisps rise, the heat mirage of a cooling corpse. Lost essence coalesce into a visage and torso of the fool. Right hand high, the white flag of surrender held aloft. Left hand thrusting a spear tipped banner into the body below. The black flag of defeat stands proud in the flesh of the fallen. Fade, flicker, disperse into motes of dust. 13 lines. Thank you one and all for the advice.
[ March 06, 2019, 06:40 PM: Message edited by: Demetri Grim ]
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
Um, really nice. And I normally am not a poet person. I thought maybe you had that talent, but I wasn't sure.
Impressive, actually. Do you put that into your fiction writing? If so, I am wondering how.
I mean, I saw flashes of that, well done. But not this strong. (I'm still unsure of how to say that.)
[ March 06, 2019, 08:40 PM: Message edited by: EmmaSohan ]
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Huh. Exquisite poetry. Contains passionate and strong, clear, timely, judicious accentual free verse, hyperbaton, periodic enjambment, auxesis, a sonnet's two-thirds' way dramatic pivot, and especially a poetic conceit (Shakespearean irony) subtext of ambivalence that expresses both a celebration of triumphant conquest and mourns an utter defeat, and more, to the whole's point of a synthesis reconciliation of both, either way, the sorrowful horrors and delightful agonies of bittersweet contests. Wow.
Posted by Grumpy old guy (Member # 9922) on :
Bleak and disturbing. Not my cup of tea, but credit where credit is due. Well done.
Phil.
Posted by Jay Greenstein (Member # 10615) on :
In looking at version 5, it might as well be version one, because the approach is exactly the same: someone we can neither see nor hear is talking about something for which we have no context:
quote:Beka hated waiting, as an apprentice blacksmith in the capital she should be working.
Here, we're told what someone we know nothing about is waiting for something unknown, and dislikes it. Hardly a "Hurray moment." She's doing this waiting in an unknown place, for unknown reasons.
We're told she's an apprentice blacksmith with an unknown amount of experience, in an unknown field. Does she work in a shop that makes nails, horseshoes, railing parts, or what? No way to know. She works in the capital, but capitol of what? Where are we in time and space? And she's how old? And, if she should be working, why isn't she?
You know all this. Everyone in the story knows. Shouldn't the reader know? She is, after all, our avatar. - - - - My point is that I could say pretty much the same thing about every version, because in every one of them, you the author, are explaining. The protagonist isn't living the scene. In fact, she never comes on stage. You're there, front and center, talking about her.
But if it's her story, and the camera is rolling, why don't I know what has her attention, and why? Why am I not learning what's going on, who she is as a person, and what part of the scene is meaningful to her. Why isn't she alive?
Suppose you began with her walking into the place. She, like you and I, would have a reason to look around and notice the things that matter to her, and her decision making. It might be where to sit, who to look for, or what to worry about. If I know what matters to her and why, plus her resources, I'll think about what she should do/say next, and care. Presented as a historical record of events, I have no reason to care. Presented without context, I have no reason to read.
You and I live our lives as a linked series of cause and effect. Something drives us to act. And what it is, and how important it is, determines what we do.
And having noticed, decided, and then acted, we know what we expect/hope to face next. And so the sequence repeats...and repeats... From waking till sleep.
We call that life. How can our protagonist seem alive if she lives in someone else's words on what she said and did? Why would we care if she succeeds or fails if we don't know what she defines as success?
Films seldom open with a narrator alone on stage explaining things, because the result may be something like, Plan 9 from Outer Space, possibly the worst film ever made. Why open a novel that way? Like film we have actors who are quite capable of carrying the story for us, and doing it a lot more realistically.
But in this, when she does act, we know what she does and says, but not her view of the situation, or even why she's moved to act. In version five, she knows who threw the metal because she knows who's there with her. But for story purpose, and dramatic purpose, you withhold that information because you're thinking visually, and talking about you visualize happening to her.
If you told it in her viewpoint, knowing who was tossing things at her, she would be speculating on why, and how she should react. In your version the man appears angry, and the reader is expected to think he is, so you can surprise them with him smiling. But in her viewpoint she knows he's kidding from the start. So you're being dishonest to the reader, and shaping events for appearance, not life. You're trying to "jazz up" the scene to add apparent drama where there is none, for effect. But your reader isn't stupid. They will see it, and react to it. So since you're going to make her life hell, why not let her live the story, as herself, and on her terms? You get to dictate the events she must react to. But stick to that, and make us know her and care for her because of the way she faces life, not how well she follows your script.
It's a very different approach, one that's emotion, not fact-based. It's character-centric, not author-centric. Do that and instead of being informed, the reader will be placed into that tiny slice of time in which she lives, and moved forward moment-by-moment, facing and resolving her problems, not being informed of them. And that's the difference between telling and showing—a simple word: viewpoint.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
For twelve years of your life, or more, during your school days, you practiced only nonfiction writing techniques, designed to inform your reader clearly and concisely. It was fact-based and author-centric, as is verbal storytelling. Think of what percentage of your assigned schoolday writing was fiction, as against reports and essays. And think of how many of your English teachers were published. If they were giving you what's needed for fiction, doesn't it follow that teachers, who know the subject best, would comprise the majority of new authors?