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FouRPlaY posted:I've been doing some editing of stories online and I'm noticing a trend of authors mixing in character action with their dialogue. Almost like reading a movie script in paragraph form. Mr_Wolf posted:
Crisco Kid fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Feb 3, 2014 |
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Jan 29, 2014 23:07
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FouRPlaY posted:
I think it breaks up the monotony of "'[Dialogue],' [Character] said" over and over by throwing in some action that character is preforming to indicate who's speaking: "[Character] opened the door. '[Dialogue]'" (etc.) Those examples are just bad writing.
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Jan 29, 2014 23:07
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Crisco Kid posted:That's typical, yeah. The examples you gave are overwrought with melodrama and insert description too much, but the practice itself is a good tool to have: http://www.writingexcuses.com/2013/08/04/writing-excuses-8-31-combining-dialogue-blocking-and-description/ Thanks, I'll check that out. Jagermonster posted:I think it breaks up the monotony of "'[Dialogue],' [Character] said" over and over by throwing in some action that character is preforming to indicate who's speaking: "[Character] opened the door. '[Dialogue]'" (etc.) Action tags are a definite thing, but it's the continual switching from dialogue to action to dialogue to action all in one paragraph that weirds me out. And yes, the examples are terrible, but they were handy.
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Jan 29, 2014 23:12
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I'm reading Rum Punch at the minute and really like the way Leonard does exactly what you're describing. Even the first page has a paragraph that reads: 'Man, all the photographers, TV cameras. This poo poo is big news, has everybody over her to see it. otherwise, Sunday, what you have mostly are rich ladies come out with their little doggies to make wee-wee. I mean the doggies, not the ladies.' A girl in front of them smiled over her shoulder and Ordell said 'How you doing baby? You making it all right?' He looked past her now, glanced at Louis to say 'I think i see him' and pushed through the crowd to get closer to the street. 'Yeah, there he is.' I love how you immediately get a sense of the characters. It feels pacy too, almost like you're right there in the crowd pushing through. I swear it makes me read a little bit faster with the flow of his words. Also thanks for the recommendation regarding short stories. Although living in the North of England this government didn't seem to think keeping public libraries open an important thing.
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Jan 29, 2014 23:23
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Mr_Wolf posted:Can i ask for some recommendations of short stories people like on here? I really need to start reading a lot more than i currently am and would appreciate some new material. Here's a link to their site: http://www.randomhouse.com/anchor/ohenry/ And here's an Amazon link to one of the more recent collections: http://www.amazon.com/The-Henry-Prize-Stories-2012/dp/0307947882/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y
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Jan 30, 2014 03:55
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Jagermonster posted:That business school analogy is horrible. My analogies in this thread are a pile of cat poo poo. They are terrible but they also contain parasites.
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Jan 30, 2014 04:21
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Hey ya'll looking for advice on trying to write a story where a character hates themselves. The problem is I'm having a hard time coming up with a way to describe this beyond, 'they hate themselves'. Does anyone have an idea of how to convey this to the reader in a less obvious way?
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Jan 30, 2014 05:30
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elfdude posted:Hey ya'll looking for advice on trying to write a story where a character hates themselves. The problem is I'm having a hard time coming up with a way to describe this beyond, 'they hate themselves'. Does anyone have an idea of how to convey this to the reader in a less obvious way? He looks in a mirror then smashes it with his fist and starts crying helpless enraged tears. E: or do it in the things and people that are described from his viewpoint. He always takes the worst and most pessimistic view of people's motivations, things are always flawed, etc. sebmojo fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Jan 30, 2014 |
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Jan 30, 2014 05:40
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sebmojo posted:He looks in a mirror then smashes it with his fist and starts crying helpless enraged tears. Joke, right?
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Jan 30, 2014 06:00
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Seems serious to me!
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Jan 30, 2014 06:01
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elfdude posted:Hey ya'll looking for advice on trying to write a story where a character hates themselves. The problem is I'm having a hard time coming up with a way to describe this beyond, 'they hate themselves'. Does anyone have an idea of how to convey this to the reader in a less obvious way? I'd say that you shouldn't "convey" that the character hates him or herself. Simply keep that in mind when you write what that character does and if it is relevant then it will be self-evident. If you're going Deep POV, then you can make every thought of the character be highly self-critical of what they do.
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Jan 30, 2014 06:06
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But really, you need to be asking yourself things like how someone who hates themselves behaves, how they talk, the sorts of things they do. If it's important to the character it'll show up in what they do. If it's critical to their personality it'll permeate their actions. Self-defeating behaviours are pretty common in such circumstance, but there's a lot of ways you can go with it if you stay away from needing to narrate the fact of the hate.
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Jan 30, 2014 06:23
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elfdude posted:Hey ya'll looking for advice on trying to write a story where a character hates themselves. The problem is I'm having a hard time coming up with a way to describe this beyond, 'they hate themselves'. Does anyone have an idea of how to convey this to the reader in a less obvious way? I have some experience with this. I wouldn't say I'm awesome at it, but I figure that if someone hates himself, he's either looking for redemption, is just kind of waiting God out, or he's self-destructive. Either way, this is the kind of thing that gets revealed through action: Is he going to jump a little too hard into opportunities to prove himself? Will he often make life harder for himself? Does he only put in the bare minimum of effort to get by? Maybe his feelings swing from one area of the spectrum to another depending on whatever? Either way, as mentioned earlier, characterization is as simple as "What happens when your character faces an obstacle?" This is one of those things you don't bother to describe: if you do the job right it comes out in the wash.
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Jan 30, 2014 06:29
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elfdude posted:Hey ya'll looking for advice on trying to write a story where a character hates themselves. The problem is I'm having a hard time coming up with a way to describe this beyond, 'they hate themselves'. Does anyone have an idea of how to convey this to the reader in a less obvious way? Read The Tommyknockers by Stephen King and take a long look at how King writes Jim Gardener. Or Jack Torrence in The Shining. Or (to a lesser extent) Larry Underwood in The Stand. If self-loathing protagonists are your thing, King's the man to read.
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Jan 30, 2014 06:31
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elfdude posted:Hey ya'll looking for advice on trying to write a story where a character hates themselves. In what way does said person hates himself? Is it a body image issue or a self-esteem problem, or maybe a feeling of helplessness of being trapped in a situation they don't feel they are strong enough to get out of? It may be that you can look into depression symptoms but I'm not sure what you're looking for. Also: Mr. Belding posted:I know most writers are hapless dipshits (which is why writing advice threads devolve into worthless whining). Considering "most" of us are "hapless dipshits" who quite likely hate ourselves, I expect you are going to get a lot of help! 
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Jan 30, 2014 06:38
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Awesome feedback yall. Thank you you've given me numerous ideas on how to further the story. The reason I ask is the story is centered around a boy who hates himself but the main characters are those who perceive him. I.E. what's happening in the boy's mind is supposed to be largely a mystery and is only hinted at. Worse this is a fairly short story not really meant to be a novel which would give me much more room to build a deep characterization. In a way I'm looking for concise ways to indicate this without delving into a ton of description. Self destructive behavior - this is a good idea, the difficulty is in conveying that sort of thing in an obvious way. Several ideas do come to mind however, for example said character could work hard to accomplish or create something then destroy it, said character could purposely hurt themselves bodily either physically or mentally and said character may distance themselves from meaningful interaction or anything which requires confidence, a sort of I'm not worthy perspective. The point in this however is that the character has value as a character, he's not simply existing in a sort of perpetual apathetic behavior. I suppose if I had to characterize how he hates himself I would say it'd be a sense of not valuing himself. It's the feeling of absolute hopelessness. The type of person who punishes themselves. Not suicidal. Not attention seeking. Although he may desire those vaguely he wouldn't act on them as attention seeking requires valuing himself at least more than others which he doesn't do and suicide would end his torment or hatred which while attractive is not his goal in the self-loathing state either. Think of someone who has been told all their life that they're worthless. Someone who has repeatedly run into bad luck. Someone who has failed in several different ways. Someone who has been abused in a variety of ways and circumstances. My goal is to paint a picture to the characters observing him that evolves to reveal his internal turmoil. Anyways, great advice so far, if anything else strikes you as you're reading this then please do contribute!
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Jan 30, 2014 07:14
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I suggest posting an excerpt in The Fiction Farm so people can give you feedback on whether the self-hating works or not.
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Jan 30, 2014 16:01
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Cross posting from the Book Barn: Last year there was an anthology showcasing the work of authors eligible for The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, an award given annually to the best new writer whose first professional work of science fiction or fantasy was published within the two previous calendar years. This year there's another one, and it's huge: http://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2014/01/announcing-2014-campbellian-anthology.html 860,000 words of fiction from 111 newly published SFF authors, all free and available for download. While it's too late to submit work for consideration in the 2014 award year, some of you may want to take a look the eligibility info and keep it in mind for the future.
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Jan 31, 2014 20:28
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If any of you are planning to vote I want to encourage you to check out Benjanun Sriduangkaew and Brooke Bolander. I'd also encourage you to look at me, but my first pub was December 29 2011 so I'm ineligible by three days. 
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Jan 31, 2014 20:33
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Ouch. No hope of it having been the January issue of something?
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Feb 1, 2014 00:39
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Posted the first couple of my chapters here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3606189 Please be gentle.
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Feb 1, 2014 13:06
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Shageletic posted:Please be gentle. Why? Would you rather be a good writer or a delusional bad one?
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Feb 1, 2014 13:23
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Lord God Baby Jesus. I've refined and rewritten this passage so many times the thing feels like an overwritten entry in a jewelry catalog. (I swear, 8-12 hours between today and yesterday, writing, rewriting, reading, rewriting) The TELL version: A creepy old guy in Georgia, in the fall, wearing (distinctive) old gloves just buried a woman, hears one of his traps go off, walks through his garden that he's been maintaining for 50 years to find a possum caught in the trap. Is this enough SHOW? Is it overkill? How can I know when it's too much or not enough? quote:Marvin Hill was planting a rose over his latest victim when the trap clanked shut. The noise startled him and his wire-rimmed glasses slid down the veined ridge of his nose. He pushed the glasses up with a bony finger, and when he stood he winced as each knee popped. This is supposed to be trashy airport horror fiction, not classic literature (popcorn, not steak). This passage reads (to me) like a bad knockoff of Jane Eyre or David Copperfield, (SOOOO much detail crammed into every sentence). Help me. Please. I feel like I've tried every possible way to construct every sentence, - he pushed the glasses back up his nose with a bony finger. - His finger, long and bony, guided his glasses back up his nose. - A bony finger pushed his glasses up his nose. - After pushing the glasses back up with a claw-like finger, he blah blah. Why am I sucking so horribly at providing enough detail?
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Feb 2, 2014 23:21
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magnificent7 posted:Lord God Baby Jesus. Eh, they're all fine. Don't obsess. And have more paras longer than one sentence, ffs.
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Feb 2, 2014 23:39
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sebmojo posted:Eh, they're all fine. Don't obsess. And have more paras longer than one sentence, ffs. I don't know what it is. Every sentence is an island. I start squishing them together and chaos sets in. Trust me, this one passage has some of the longest paragraphs I've ever written.
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Feb 2, 2014 23:46
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I think you're confusing "showing" with description. They are of course related but they aren't the same thing. Here are some of the things that your story "shows": -The protagonist is an older man -Like many older people he holds onto items like gloves until they are completely warn out -He lives in what is probably the suburban part of a city or town -He's comfortable in the outdoors, knows his way around traps and plants and wildlife -He's been operating out of the same location for a while -He likes to talk to himself or to inanimate objects and animals -He's a killer and he apparently uses his garden to hide their bodies -This isn't his first victim The way that you've showed these things is through your descriptions, such as when you mention that he wears glasses, has bony fingers, and knees that pop when he stands up. I think you're provided a fine amount of detail. We have a bit of a sense of this guys personality, the way he operates and the sort of environment he's in. Rather than worrying about whether your descriptions are good enough I think you should just push ahead with your story. Once you have a first draft you can start going back and trying to figure out how to make the descriptions themselves better but so far they aren't bad (though the shortness of the paragraphs is a little jarring and strange). "Showing" of course contrasts with "telling". In your story an example of telling would be the first sentence, where you explicitly identify that he's planting a rose over "his latest victim". There's nothing wrong with this since it propels the narrative forward, but the point here is that "showing" isn't the same as description, showing is essentially what description is supposed to accomplish, in contrast to telling which is typically handled through raw exposition. "Marvin Hill was planting a rose over his latest victim" = telling us this guy just murdered someone "when he stood he winced as each knee popped" = showing us that he's old enough to have knee problems
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Feb 3, 2014 00:08
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magnificent7 posted:
Uh....what? Well stop doing that what the gently caress
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Feb 3, 2014 03:14
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blue squares posted:Uh....what? Well stop doing that what the gently caress quote:Marvin Hill was planting a rose over his latest victim when the trap clanked shut. The noise startled him and his wire-rimmed glasses slid down the veined ridge of his nose. He pushed the glasses up with a bony finger, and when he stood he winced as each knee popped. The afternoon sun, fractured through drops of sweat trapped in his bushy eyebrows, almost blinded him. He wiped his brow with a glove so ancient that the rawhide fingertips were almost disintegrated. See how much better it looks? If there's a single train of action/though, you want to string it together as a single paragraph.
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Feb 3, 2014 06:01
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That's an awful lot of extraneous attribution you added to a scene with a single character, though. I wouldn't have been nearly so heavy-handed with it.
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Feb 3, 2014 06:06
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:That's an awful lot of extraneous attribution you added to a scene with a single character, though. I wouldn't have been nearly so heavy-handed with it.
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Feb 3, 2014 06:16
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crabrock posted:Why? Would you rather be a good writer or a delusional bad one? Just a joke. I come here for the brutal honesty. I don't think I'm an especially good writer or anything (as seen by my thread), but I'd like to think that I have the constitution to adapt and change depending on feedback. I'd really like to. So I really need honesty (rather than passing it around my friends and getting the responses I want). But that doesn't stop it from being brutal, even though its very much necessary. The fact that my thread is still up is anxiety producing, especially since I'm doing a first page, from the first word, re-write. Not to mention embarrassing. I just want to wipe away what I wrote, and maybe later on put up the newest version of it.
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Feb 3, 2014 15:00
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:That's an awful lot of extraneous attribution you added to a scene with a single character, though. I wouldn't have been nearly so heavy-handed with it. "s/he said" is more or less invisible to the reader. Lots of unattributed dialogue will actually be more jarring.
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Feb 3, 2014 15:04
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Yeah, what? Those are tiny, dude. Save your paragraph breaks for bigger and more important things. Check it out: I have to agree with this. Sometimes it's cool to do dialogue back and forth with no attribution if it can work, but if it's ever unclear who is saying something the illusion is broken and it's the worst thing. Not saying you've done that, but I did just a few days ago.
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Feb 3, 2014 15:07
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Excellent work mr. Muffin. Thank you for doing that. (and thank you ALL for your suggestions and thoughts on it) I'll compare your structure to mine - I really don't know why I'm so paragraph-averse, but I'll work on it. But the dialog at the end of some paragraphs seem just odd to me, I don't know why. quote:In the cage, a possum cowered, baring a mouthful of tiny white teeth. He'd used his traps for years to keep the garden free of pests, but he'd never caught something as big as a possum before. It looked like a giant rat suffering from hair loss. It didn't have much room and couldn't turn around in the cage. In fact, it was a wonder how the beast had wedged itself into the trap in the first place. "Guess we'll go with the tail then, all right?" he said. Like that - I thought dialog (and the person's movements/reactions during that dialog) typically got its own paragraph. Since the above paragraph starts out talking about the possum and goes on to talk about how the possum was jammed into the cage, I don't understand your reason for putting the dialog into the end of it. Not saying it's wrong, I'm trying to understand why it's right.
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Feb 3, 2014 15:54
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It should be its own paragraph. I think the Suspicious Puffin made a rare error.
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Feb 3, 2014 15:56
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Martello posted:It should be its own paragraph. I think the Suspicious Puffin made a rare error. Also, Helsing posted:Once you have a first draft you can start going back and trying to figure out how to make the descriptions themselves better... This is a new stab at the first chapter in an effort to put more conflict and action into it. (Originally, it started out with Marvin killing the possum and his grand daughter showing up and they leave together.) There's more to this chapter, but after I wrote the first draft this time, (events, pacing, descriptions, general dialog) I went back and started trying to craft each sentence more concisely; fewer prepositions, tighter descriptions, fewer adverbs, getting more inside the head of Marvin and trying to write less like a script. Out of 2400 words, this poo poo is as far as I got in that before posting it here asking for help. If I waste this much time agonizing over each little sentence, I'll never finish OR I'll lose the entire idea. For example - there's one paragraph in there about what the yard was like when he bought it 50 years ago. That needs to be in there, but really, it could appear almost anywhere in the opening scene because it's not a part of the action. I swear, I removed the sentence, read this entire passage and tried to figure out the easiest place to put it to add to the story but not stop the action. Is there an easy answer to something like that? It's a tiny piece of world-building/exposition that matters, but I don't know if it's critical to the scene. So, just, set it aside for later in the chapter? Does it REALLY matter where it appears? magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Feb 3, 2014 |
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Feb 3, 2014 15:57
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magnificent7 posted:He did it in the paragraph above it as well, which made me wonder if there's more to it than that. In that one it's a little more ambiguous. It's a paragraph that starts with the speaker's action so technically you could put the dialogue at the end. Personally, I wouldn't. I don't know if there's an actual grammar rule about it, but sometimes it's okay to fudge grammar in favor of flow and style.
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Feb 3, 2014 16:06
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How do you guys plot out your stories? Plan everything out before you start, or just play it by ear? I find the toughest part of writing is figuring out the story. once I've got that, the words just show up.
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Feb 3, 2014 18:11
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Malloreon posted:How do you guys plot out your stories? Plan everything out before you start, or just play it by ear? Every writer is different here, I think. Personally, I get best results from plotting things out at a scene-by-scene level, and then updating the plan every few days as (inevitably) everything changes. "No plan survives contact with the enemy", and all that. But I know people who don't plan anything at all, or who pin everything down to one plot sentence per hundred words of finished script, or who set up characters and conflicts and let them run, or... well, you get the idea.
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Feb 3, 2014 19:19
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I write short stories as they come, organically. I start longer pieces that way but I usually have to stop and outline the rest of the plot so it doesn't go on rabbit trails. So, like Ghostwoods said, everyone does it differently. You just have to figure out what works. There's no magic formula for plotting.
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Feb 3, 2014 19:45
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