posted
Currently 50,000 words. R-rated for language. Hoping for feedback and eventually someone willing to read. I'd like to expand to a proper length. Just joined this forum--wasn't able to find any 13 line submissions to critique. I did read that one can learn more from critiquing and would be happy to do so. The novel is straight sci-fi and meant to be comedic.
Cryptoporticus is about Joe Kelly, a young man who believes he is a narcotics officer working the mean streets of Camden, NJ. His attempt to infiltrate the operation of a local drug dealer goes terribly wrong and leads to what he believes is his death, but the beautiful glowing light that waits for him at the end of the death tunnel is not the doorway to heaven. Rather, he is brought to a futuristic city where he is apprehended and jailed. As Joe struggles to unravel the mystery of who he really is, he is surprised to discover he is part of a plot to assassinate a world leader.
First thirteen lines follow.
Joe waited for Knees a few blocks from the crummy little apartment Tac rented for him just over a week ago. In that time he had done what he felt was a pretty good job playing junkie. He was already on the scrawny side and while he hadn’t entirely abandoned personal hygiene, he’d certainly neglected it to the point he looked like he belonged in Rat Scum Central. That was how Knees referred to this part of the city, a warren of cut-rate barrooms and dreary hotels where the struggling toiled among the depraved and the destitute. Joe had passed himself off as a drifter with a habit, developing a kind of junkie shuffle, getting to know the local players, learning to distinguish between the snakes, who only ripped you off, and the creeps, who sold drugs for the local dealers. There were still a few hours left in the day and the air
posted
Brace yourself. This will sting, but I figure you will want to know:
In this, from start to finish, you, the narrator, are talking to the reader, transcribing your vocal performance as a storyteller. You’re explaining and reporting, which is pretty much the method we’re taught in school. Great for reports and essays, where the goal is to provide an informational experience. And after twelve or more years of school, we’re pretty damn good at writing reports. But compare the number of assigned reports and the number of assigned stories and you’ll see how much you were taught about writing fiction, whose goal is to provide an emotional experience, not an informational one.
Fiction is fact-based and author-centric. The narrator provides information to the reader. And because the reader can’t either see or hear the narrator, the voice carries only the emotion the punctuation suggests to the reader, and the meaning the words suggest based on the reader’s background, not your intent.
The things I mentioned aren’t your fault, though, or related to talent or how well you write. It’s that all of us graduate school believing we were taught how to write, when what we were taught was one approach to writing: nonfiction. After all, why are we educated? To provide our future employers with a pool of potential employees who have a predictable and useful (to them) set of skills.
And think about it. What do most employers want us to write? Essays and reports: nonfiction. In reality, we all miss the fact that professions are learned in addition to the skills we call The Three R’s, and ours is a profession.
You don’t see that because when you read your own work the narrator’s voice—your voice—is filled with emotion. The words call up images, ideas, action, ambiance, and lots more that’s stored in your mind. So the story works exactly as it should.
But what about the reader. For them, the words call up images, ideas, action, ambiance, and lots more that’s stored in your mind.
Look at the opening as a reader, who lacks all that information:
quote: Joe waited for Knees a few blocks from the crummy little apartment Tac rented for him just over a week ago.
Someone unknown is waiting for someone not introduced. As a reader who lacks any trace of context, why should I care, or want to know more? And why do I need to know how long ago someone unknown rented a “crummy” apartment in an unknown city during an unknown year?
See how critical context is? When entering any scene you need to provide context either before or as it’s needed. We can’t provide it later because you can’t remove confusion retroactively.
So, are you doomed as a writer? Of course not. The problem is one that everyone who turns to writing faces, and every successful writer overcame it. Why shouldn’t you?
The solution is utter simplicity: Pick up the tricks of fiction writing and add them to the skills you already own. Then practice them till they feel as intuitive as the skills you presently own.
Is it easy and fast? No, but any profession takes time to perfect, so… And the cost is low. If you use the local library system’s fiction writing section as a resource it’s free. And the best book I’ve found on writing, Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer is only $15.51 to download. A used hard-copy is cheaper than that.
But there are lots of other good ones. James Scott Bell’s, Elements of Fiction Writing might be in your local library, and that’s damn good.
So have at it. If you are meant to write you’ll find the learning fun. And it it’s not? Well, you’ve learned something important. So it’s win/win, right?
For an overview of the differences between nonfiction and fiction technique and approach, I can make some suggestions, though site rules won’t allow a link.
Take a look for, Writing the Perfect Scene, by Randy Ingermanson. It’s a condensation of one very powerful way to place the reader into the scene in real-time.
And I’m immodest enough to believe that the writing articles in my blog may help show the scope of the field. They’re listed under: Greenstein the craft of writing.
So, I know this wasn’t what you were hoping for. And I wish there were an easier way to break such news. There might be, but I’ve not found one. And I know that after putting so much of yourself into the writing, this kind of thing can really hurt. But on the other hand, you now know what most hopeful writers never learn. And someone has to make it, so why not you?
Two relevant quotes:
“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” ~ E. L. Doctorow
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” ~ Mark Twain
So fix some of those “just ain’t so" issues and the Doctorow quote comes into play.
But whatever you do: Hang in there, and keep on writing. It keeps us off the streets at night.
Posts: 263 | Registered: Dec 2016
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Second, the most important thing is to finish your book, not worry about your start.
People like different things in a start. If that's the start you like, great. To kind of echo Jay, I did get a feeling you were writing the kind of start you thought writers like. Or you were working really hard at the setting.
You could try starting with some interesting action to see how you like it.
Small point:
"In that time he had done what he felt was a ..."
In editing, you are supposed to notice that's a kind of long string of empty words. Or it felt that way to me.
Posts: 407 | Registered: Apr 2018
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I don't remember ever even thinking that links to writing articles were not acceptable.
If I said that, I must have really been out of it, and I apologize grovellingly.
Please let me know if you can find where I said such a thing, and I will edit (or even delete) such a post.
And, if it isn't too much trouble, please go back and insert links to your writing articles in your blog where you would have included them, but didn't.
I really hope you didn't go through your posts and remove the links that were already there.
And again, I'm really sorry I ever gave that impression. Posts: 8826 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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I would still like to know what I did to cause the misunderstanding. I appreciate your graciousness about it all.
Posts: 8826 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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posted
I really don't remember. It's been years. And it's not impossible that I've mis-remembered and it was another site. Lots of them won't let you post a link to your own blog.
Posts: 263 | Registered: Dec 2016
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posted
Jay, I’ve seen similar responses from you to other writers and I am confused as I feel like at the start of a novel or story of any kind things will be introduced which are unknown to the reader and explained later? Here is the first kindle page of Enders Game for example: “I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears, and I tell you he’s the one. Or at least as close as we’re going to get.” “That’s what you said about the brother.” “The brother tested out impossible. For other reasons. Nothing to do with his ability.” “Same with the sister. And there are doubts about him. He’s too malleable. Too willing to submerge himself in someone else’s will.” “Not if the other person is his enemy.” “So what do we do? Surround him with enemies all the time?” “If we have to.” “I thought you said you liked this kid.” “If the buggers get him, they’ll make me look like his favorite uncle.” “All right. We’re saving the world, after all. Take him.”
We don’t know who’s talking, what they’re talking about, or why we should care, right? But it’s compelling. I’m not being argumentative, I really am wondering how far what you’re saying reaches and if you can point me to an example of something where this doesn’t happen? Or maybe I’m just totally misunderstanding?
Posts: 3 | Registered: Jan 2020
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quote:I feel like at the start of a novel or story of any kind things will be introduced which are unknown to the reader and explained later?
Bear in mind that what I say isn't written in stone. I try to pass on the views of the publishing pros, but there are other views. That being said, in the matter of setting up mysteries for later, I think you're forgetting that the reader has a lousy memory. Remember, they may be with you for fifteen minutes as they eat lunch, or on the way to and from work on the train. They'll abandon you on weekends. And I mean that literally. The page counts for Kindle online readers drops significantly on weekends.
So the odds say the reader will probably forget that mystery you set up on page three when they need to remember it on page 265.
But that aside, missing information isn't a mystery. It's just missing information, and a reason to say, "Huh?" And you definitely don't want them to say that when they're auditioning your work. So unless what you provide catches the reader's interest, and does not make them wonder what in the hell is going on when you abandon what's happening and jump into what appears to be a different story, it just might be a rejection getter.
And in the end, you have about three pages to capture the reader's attention. Bore them for a line in that time and you lose them. Confuse them and they're gone, too. They come to the work with mild curiosity, which fades quickly, unless your writing replaces it with active interest.
As for the sample you posted. First, it helps to be a brilliant writer. He can get away with things that would have you and I rejected.
And as far as Ender's Game? This is personal, and has no significance other than that, but:
I read the novelette in Analog magazine when it was first published in '77 (yes, I'm that old), and was blown away by it. When I read the novelized version, though, I wasn't. But that story was famous before the manuscript reached the publisher's, so we have no way of knowing how the opening would have been received were it the first submission of an unpublished writer. Look at a few of his other works and you probably won't see that approach used again. And of course what publishers look for today in a submission doesn't match what got a yes then.
But in the end, I think Sol Stein's observation is the thing to focus on: “A novel is like a car—it won’t go anywhere until you turn on the engine. The “engine” of both fiction and nonfiction is the point at which the reader makes the decision not to put the book down. The engine should start in the first three pages, the closer to the top of page one the better.”
Posts: 263 | Registered: Dec 2016
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posted
Thank you Jay for your in depth reply! I forgot about the previous short version of Enders Game, I’m sure that served to help get it published. Oh to be a genius writer!! I am JUST starting out and it is so, well, depressing, to see how difficult it is. I have always dreamed of writing a book and always been too afraid to try. I read CONSTANTLY so I’m hoping that will help. We shall see...
Posts: 3 | Registered: Jan 2020
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posted
Reading is great, and useful, but...does eating teach us to cook?
Will reading tell us why a given author chose X over Y, or even make us know what Y is, or that there was a choice to make? How much does art conceal art?
The thing we all miss is that we don't leave our schooldays knowing how to write a script, or to work as a journalist. Yet because we learned a skill called writing we make the reasonable assumption that since the profession is Fiction-Writing, the common word, writing, indicates a close relationship between the skill and the profession.
If only... True, we learned one form of writing. But does that form work for fiction? If the ratio of reports and essays vs assigned stories is an indication, how strongly did our schooldays prepare us for writing fiction?
For example, did any teacher explain why a scene on the page usually ends in disaster for the protagonist, and should? And that's only one of hundreds of issues the pros take for granted.
My point is that we all forget that professions are learned in addition to the traditional Three R's we're given in school. And if Fiction-Writing weren't a profession, our fearless leader, who teaches writing, among other things, might be out of a job.
The thing to remember is that the goal of nonfiction is to inform, clearly and concisely, which is an informational goal. The author dispassionately presents and explains the subject matter.
A history book is filled with the kind of thing that makes fiction so exciting: danger, betrayal, chases, romance, intrigue, and more. But who ever called a history book a page-turner?
Why don't they? Because history is immutable. There's no uncertainty, which is what the reader feeds on. A reader is never happier than when saying, "Oh my...now what do we do?"
History is presented in overview, with fact following fact. But fiction tickles our emotions, and gets us shouting advice to the characters, the way we do to the TV screen when we think no one else can hear. Fiction makes us care by placing us into the moment the protagonist calls "now," then advancing that, moment by moment, in real-time, so there is the illusion of time passing for the reader, while making the future unknown, uncertain, and, therefore, interesting. It's emotion-based and character-centric, an approach to writing not even mentioned as existing in your schooldays.
In fact, your teachers probably weren't aware that it existed. After all, they learned their writing skills in the same classrooms, and unless they studied the professional skills of fiction, how would they know?
So the answer is simple. If you want to write, it's not talent holding you back, it's as Mark Twain put it: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” And one of the things we aren't aware of, was summed up by E. L. Doctorow with: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
So my suggestion is to dive in. If you want to know if you're suited to be a writer, devour a few good books on the professional techniques. Because if you are meant to write, the learning will be like going backstage at the theater. Then, knowing what to look for, your reading will show you far more about how a given writer handles the various elements of a scene and you will learn by reading. And think about it. If we're not aware of how a scene on the page differs from one on stage/screen, why it must, and what the elements that make it up are, can we write one?
The library's fiction-writing section is loaded with books on the subject for the taking, by pros in writing, publishing, and teaching. My personal favorite is Dwight Swain's, Techniques of the Selling Writer, for picking up the nuts-and-bolts issues—though it's an older book and probably not in the local library. But I suggest picking up a personal copy, reading it slowly, with lots of time to practice ach point, and make it yours. Then, six months later, read it again, to pick up as much the second time as the first, because you better understand where he's going. But there are other excellent books on the subject.
Sorry for the length of this, but what can I say? My focus is on novels. So I have trouble saying hello in less than 10,000 words.
Posts: 263 | Registered: Dec 2016
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posted
Hi Ibing. I haven't been here in ages, so I'm more than a little rusty on the critiquing schtick. Just four points:
1. I think this could work, but it doesn't hook me at the moment. That's mainly because of (a) too much information too soon, (b) too much POV distance and (c) familiar voice (as expressed by word choices). I'll touch on each in turn...
2. Three names/characters are introduced in the first sentence. I'd rather stay mainly with Joe (if he's your protagonist) for a while before having to remember a bunch of other people for whom I don't have any context.
3. In the second sentence the narration is disembodied – "he had done what he felt...". I wonder if this would work better if you adopted close, third-person – sharing only what is happening for and in Joe right now, so we have a chance to acclimatize to his world. This might involve seeing the environment through Joe's eyes, not Knees'; sharing whatever Joe's thinking in the moments before you spring some sort of inciting incident on us. (Aside: I'm not sure if the name 'Knees' comes from the body parts or is pronounced similarly to the Dutch 'Kees'. The name pulled me up; interrupted the flow.)
4. Word choices: The 'feel' of the prose starts to build up my 'feel' for the character – for their perspective and how their mind works. This comes from syntax, but also from word choices. This phrase – "a warren of cut-rate barrooms and dreary hotels where the struggling toiled among the depraved and the destitute" – feels very familiar to me... Not because it's not your construction, but because of the familiar images for this kind of environment. The warren-metaphor; the combination of 'depraved' and 'destitute'; the 'struggling toil[ing away]'. I've seen this sort of thing, and from this sort of perspective. How does Joe, this new person entering my life, see it? If he sees it in a way that interests me, I'll read on. A fresh way of seeing the environment could be introduced by making some different word choices. One way to approach this: look for specific images (nouns) instead of general adjectives.
I'd be happy to read the first chapter if you're not in a major rush for feedback. Thanks for sharing, and I hope this feedback's of some use.
Posts: 115 | Registered: May 2018
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