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Please support the Benny boy

 
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princeben07
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Joined: 06 Feb 2008
Posts: 86
Location: Geostratum Of Antiquity

PostPosted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:23 am    Post subject: Please support the Benny boy Reply with quote

I want ALL to give me input on my Story, If Ever Your World Starts Crashing Down, Part 1.

If you are interested in reading, go ahead and click on it to give it a go.
please DO not post in the story itself as a courtesy. OOC topics such as these will be provided for your comments or suggestions. I have another thread set for pics for the Benny boy and my renditions, okay?

Thanks,

Benaires

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ScottyDM
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 31, 2009 12:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okaaaay. Since you asked.

I am not tempted to read If Ever Your World Comes Crashing Down for several reasons:
  1. There's a DAICHON in the story. I saw your thread on DAICHON and I must say, they'd make fantastic role-play characters. I mean if you want to win--pick up all the treasure, gain all the experience points--what better way to do that than with a character that is a "strong genetic combination of the following: Wolf/ Wolf-demon/Eel/Octopii/Squid/Feline/Dragon, Ect." However, such a character is useless in fiction. Simply following a character around while they pick up all the treasure and gain all the experience points is boring. Also, unless DAICHON is an acronym do not capitalize every letter. In fact, it's wrong to capitalize species names such as "wolf", "wolf-demon", "eel", and even "human". If the name is a proper name such as "Inuit", "Parisian", or "African" you do capitalize it.
  2. Your "story" starts with line: "Please understand, that this is a CURRENTLY ongoing-ROLEPLAY...." It's darn hard to turn a role-play campaign into a story. Role-play campaigns and stories have radically different goals and require vastly different techniques to produce successful results. It can be done, but an epic fail is the more likely result. You may as well have written, "This story is probably terrible so don't read it."
  3. That first post seems to be author's notes and character sketches, not story. Know what? As a reader I do not want to see author's notes and character sketches. If the story cannot stand on its own, rewrite it.
  4. The character of Avus seems like a total Mary-Sue. Along with the total Mary-Sueness of your daichon race this is a major turnoff. Mary-Sues suck. So what's a Mary-Sue? Here is The Universal Mary-Sue Litmus Test. Apply it to each of your characters and see how they do. The higher the score the more your character sucks. Suck is bad.
That's harsh, but it was how you presented your story. If you hadn't posted anything but the story I wouldn't feel a strong bias against reading it.

Maybe your story is insanely great. There are some promising elements. For example it seems as if you're trying to make Avus behave in nonhuman ways--a strong plus for furry fiction. My advice is do not front-load your story with a bunch of data. It's a turn off. Start with your story. Let there be some mystery. Then as the story unfolds you can reveal things about your characters. At the beginning of any story the readers have questions, but for every question you answer set up another question. The end is the time to reveal all, not the first scene.


Well, there are two distinct aspects of creating good fiction: being a good storyteller and being a good writer. The issues I raised above are primarily storytelling issues. Next let's touch on the writerly aspect of If Ever Your World Comes Crashing Down.

I read the first dozen paragraphs of your second post (the actual story). These are my impressions:
  1. I get the strong impression English is not your primary language. Sentence structure is, ummm, unique. As if your story were written in something else, then machine translated to English. However reading your forum posts I don't get this impression. So is your craptastic sentence structure purposeful?
  2. I don't know if it's your inside-out syntax, but your second sentence has a misplaced modifier. The way this sentence is constructed you have the sunlight squinting. You should read the Sentence Sleuth's blog, or even get her book.
  3. Too many words. More words does not improve writing, but weakens the impact. The opening of your second paragraph is a good example. The words "for the moment" detract from the sentence and they left me wondering, do the covers spring back into place?
  4. In the third paragraph you wrote: "he was beginning to feel the effects of being so well-off financially." This is so vague it's useless. Do you even know what these effects are? Are they important to the story? If so then show us. If he's hungover because too much money means he somehow feels compelled to drink too much Dom Perignon, then say that. Or if too much money means he sleeps on bags of gold coins and it ruins his back, then say that.
  5. The fourth paragraph, the first snippet of dialog, is wonderful! The wonderfulness of this paragraph is that I can picture your character as a bit over the top, a bit snooty, and a bit alien. The third sentence is especially delightful. To perfect this paragraph the second sentence needs a comma after the word coffee, and for the same reason you have that comma in the first sentence--he is speaking to "sweetheart" and not about her. Big warning, the things that make this wonderful as dialog would make it equally horrible as narrative. You don't want your narrator to come across as over the top, snooty, or alien.
  6. The fifth paragraph is an orgy of weird verb tense. First, too many -ing verbs. I think of -ing verbs as continuous tense--something that happened before, during, and after that moment in time. -Ing verbs are present-continuous tense when used alone, but can be pulled into past or future tense with helper verbs. Here's an example in past tense: Contrast "Poodle kicked Kat in the tail," with "Poodle was kicking Kat in the tail." In the first, how many times did Poodle kick Kat? The implication is once. In the second sentence the "was kicking" implies many kicks. You can also use an -ing verb to show an overlap in actions: "While turning the corner Kat collided with Poodle." That is during the act of turning the corner, the second thing happened. This could be written without an -ing verb thus, "As he turned the corner Kat collided with Poodle." Easy peasy!
  7. The other problem with the fifth paragraph is your nonstandard construction of past-tense verbs by coupling a past-tense helper verb to a present or past-tense verb. "Having been spending" should be "She had spent" (then after the comma, change "she" to "and"). "Could hear" should be "heard". "Would lightly set" should be "lightly set" (but that sentence is too wordy and wants a rewrite). "Would lift" should be "lifted". And "would ruffle" should be "ruffled". Fix most of the other -ing verbs too. Too many words is not sophistication, but wishy-washy writing. I noticed many other examples of weird tense, but this paragraph was crawling with vermin verbs.
  8. The 10th paragraph was a giant WTF moment... did you just jump time, place, or point of view with no transition? If so you must insert a scene break.
  9. You have "busily rang" in the 11th paragraph. Is there any other kind of ringing? Dump "busily", it strips your sentence of grace.
  10. You know how to divide your prose into paragraphs. While I might not have made the same choices you did, I see no problem with yours. Bravo!
  11. Ummm, is "O_O" a scene break symbol, or an emoticon. Emoticons have no place in a prose story. Traditional manuscript format uses 1 to 3 "#" symbols on a line by themselves (centered if possible).
  12. In the little I read you handled point-of-view (POV) well.
  13. Oh yea, the ellipsis is precisely three dots, no more, no less. In some cases you may combine the ellipsis with one other punctuation mark, but not with a second ellipsis.
The biggest issues (in order) are weird sentence structure, weird verb tense, and too many words.


It helps to read good examples of writing and storytelling. In another thread you mentioned you were reading a certain serialized story that's popular within the fandom. That story's author is quite good with characterization and dialog, but his storytelling is weak at best (chapters of filler, weird tangents in the plot explained away as, "It was just a dream," etc.), and his writing is poor (your handling of paragraph breaks and POV is superior). An example of a well-told and well-written story within that storyworld is Zig Zag the Story by James Bruner. Highly recommended.

Scotty

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Almost real enough to be considered non-fiction, if it weren't made up.
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princeben07
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Joined: 06 Feb 2008
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Location: Geostratum Of Antiquity

PostPosted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 1:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not sure I follow.

I like Avus in the form that he is quite the mysterious character. While he might not have much to say at times, he does make the storyline quite interesting.

And I've read a bit of Zig Zag. Its pretty tight, lol.

I'll clean things up for more feedback; see how to make the editing a bit better.

^_^

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ScottyDM
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Joined: 12 Feb 2005
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Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 5:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You know your characters better than I, so maybe give them that Mary-Sue test and see how they do. It's okay, even cool, to have characters with a few special traits, but too many and people will stop reading at some point.

Maybe Avus is fine. He's quite young and yet a quarter-billionaire, which seems unrealistic. Yea, this dachon gave him a truck-load of money, but so what. Reality is more bizarre than anyone can imagine, but fiction needs to seem real. Having some Eternal gift your MC (main character), who is still a child (I think you said he was 19), with gobs of money doesn't seem real.

I did like the interaction between Avus and Okina.


I was going to suggest you delete all those author's notes in the first post, but I see you did that. Did I miss seeing the opening of the story last time?


I'm puzzled by the sentence structure in your story. When I read a post like this one I see you write normal English. Has someone been teaching you that "good" writing uses that odd structure? I think you should write your story like you wrote that post.


I'll keep my eye open for updates.

Scotty

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princeben07
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 10:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The fourth paragraph, the first snippet of dialog, is wonderful! The wonderfulness of this paragraph is that I can picture your character as a bit over the top, a bit snooty, and a bit alien. The third sentence is especially delightful. To perfect this paragraph the second sentence needs a comma after the word coffee, and for the same reason you have that comma in the first sentence--he is speaking to "sweetheart" and not about her. Big warning, the things that make this wonderful as dialog would make it equally horrible as narrative. You don't want your narrator to come across as over the top, snooty, or alien. ----Scotty DM



Yeah, you know what? I think I should slow this down and really concentrate on the sentence structure. After re-reading it a bit, I REALLY need to slow down and check for grammatical errors.

A more detailed narrative might help, along with more spell-checking as well. I'll get on that as soon as I can. ^_^

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ScottyDM
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 7:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

princeben07 wrote:
Yeah, you know what? I think I should slow this down and really concentrate on the sentence structure. After re-reading it a bit, I REALLY need to slow down and check for grammatical errors.

A more detailed narrative might help, along with more spell-checking as well. I'll get on that as soon as I can. ^_^

Everyone has a different approach to writing and it's important to do what works for you, not what someone says is the "right" technique. Personally, I have a tendency to polish as I go, which makes getting to the end a somewhat lengthy process. If you need to whip through a first draft, finish it, then go back and make several polishing passes... well, that's your technique. Anyway, it's a process so do whatever works for you.

The readers don't need to see the process, they need to see the end result and that should be the best you can make it.

Beta readers and critiquers (a.k.a. "critters") are not in the same class as readers. They get to see the chapters before final edits and will offer suggestions on how to improve the story as well as point out typos and other glitches. Where in the process between first draft and final they get first peek at the story depends on the goals of the writer and the personality of the critters. Also note that a critiquer is not the same as a critic. Critiquers exist to help authors polish their story. Critics exist to tell readers which stories are worth the time and which to avoid.

If a writer wants feedback on the story's structure then a first draft is probably fine, as long as the critters know they're not to spend any time on grammar issues, punctuation, etc. However some critters can't stand the sight of an out-of-place comma so this early pass critique is probably not for them. Also, to comment on story structure pretty much means the critters need to see the whole manuscript in one go.

If a writer wants feedback on grammar issues, punctuation, etc. then the manuscript should be as close to final as practical, and it's not only okay, but preferable to feed the critters one chapter at a time. After all, they're going to go through it with a metaphorical flea comb, and that requires several passes of careful reading. It's easier if one has only a few pages to read per week.


I've been a member of Critique Circle for about five years. A membership is required to even see any of the stories, but membership is free. It works on a point system: You critique others stories to earn points, then spend points to post your stories for others to critique. It works pretty well and critting the works of other writers is a good way to learn to write. BTW, I'm ScottyDM there too.

Last week I went as a guest to sit in on a live critique session given by Pikes Peak Writers Group. An author would read their story aloud for 5 minutes, then every other author would give 2.5 minutes of feedback on what they'd heard, and then they'd move on to the next author. I was delighted and frightened at how polished most of the excerpts were. It's nice to find a group that will pull me up to their level. As for longer works, I understand that interested members form little groups to critique each others' novels.


I can see where you're coming from, I was once there myself. I wrote a novella and thought it was the best thing since fire. But no one read it. It felt weird to go around begging for readers. I posted it on FictionPress, but no readers. Posted it on Elfwood and one guy read and commented. Found a little group of fan-fickers and I critted their postings, but only one critted mine (they didn't crit each others' either, just lazy). Finally found Critique Circle. That's when I discovered my storytelling wasn't quite so hot as I'd imagined, nor did I possess many mad writing skillz. But they weren't so bad either. I improved tremendously by posting and critting at CC.

Another thing that helped was entering Nadan's little writing contest. The first time my story ended up in the middle of the pack, but it gave me a huge boost of confidence to even enter the contest. The second story I entered won. I'd proved something to myself by winning and I felt I could relax. Now I can work on a story in private until it's complete, and not feel anxious about validation. The critters will see it when it's ready and not before.

Anyway, Nadan was forced to quit running the contest and in 2006 I took over as manager. It's still a little contest with between 3 and 9 entries per quarter, and has feedback and a scoring system. And it's pretty easy to spot which comments are mine. I speak my mind, but I offer constructive comments--unlike Simon Cowell. Wink


Good luck with your story, and have fun writing!

Scotty

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Syrius
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 3:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am speechless. Shocked
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ScottyDM
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 5:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Syrius wrote:
I am speechless. Shocked

He didn't want to be ignored.

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