The Farm 2013. Flash Fiction and Snippets Critique Hub (<1000 Words)

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Nethilia: Oct 17, 2012; Hullabalooza '96
Easily Depressed
Teenagers Edition

I can offer a critique. I'm more of a grammar/spacing/formatting bitcher than anything else.

Anathema Device posted:

Christi dumps her tray into the trashcan slowly, looking to see what's gone in before. Liking the present tense; generally not a fan of the style when I write, but it works here. There's half a cookie and a packet of chips, and with her broad body in the way, she can reach in and grab them without anyone noticing.

She's eaten all they've given her, but she's always hungry. She watches herself wrap her salvaged goods in a napkin and stuff them in her sweatshirt pocket, hating it. Hating herself. Which "it" is she hating, the food or herself? There's still time before math to find a quiet place to eat.

There's something on the chip bag that's sticky and smelly. She wants to throw it away again. She wants to puke when she pulls her hand from her pocket and sees the trashcan slime on it. She wants to stuff all the chips into her mouth before she's caught. The sentences feel....choppy? Repetitive. They all start the same, and it jars me.

Christi makes herself walk to the bathroom. She has to pee, but she can't wait that long; there's food in her pockets and she can feel it itching at the back of her mind. She makes herself More making, not feeling it. wash her hands slowly, meticulously. She glances under each door to make sure she's alone.

When she pulls the chips from her pocket, she breaks. She wants to throw the food out again. She wants to wash the sticky mess off the bag. She's wanting and making and watching again. Instead she watches herself pinch the corners, reach in, stuff them into her mouth Can you see your own mouth? Is she looking in a mirror? all in one big handful. In the mirror Ah, she is. You could have put that earlier, maybe? her face is speckled with bits of chip and grease. Crumbs fall on her sweatshirt and stick there, staining it.

She has the cookie into her mouth when the door opens. She chews fast, trying to swallow it, but the chip bag is still on the counter and her mouth is still full when the two girls come in.

Paragraph break, else it blends into Christi's thoughts. Enter is free to the word count.

�Oooh, look,� the first says. �It's the harpy. Come to stuff your face?�

�Look what she's got. Did you pull that out of the trash, harpy?� Specify this is girl two, maybe?

�She can't answer, look. Her mouth's full of trash!� The punctuation and capitalization felt off, probably just me. It parses better to see: �She can't answer--look, her mouth's full of trash!�

paragraph break added to make the focus on Christi again.

The girls make theatrical gagging noises that set off Christi's own gag reflex. She swallows dry cookie and nausea. Throwing up isn't an option; it's just past noon and she doesn't know when she'll get to eat again. Not until lunch tomorrow if her dad finds out she's been stealing treats. No need for a break here, pulled it. So she swallows and doesn't puke and doesn't cry, because there's no tears left. �Harpy, harpy,� they call her, while she washes her hands and keeps her eyes down so she doesn't see their pretty, thin faces in the mirror. She wishes her class had never studied the mythical vulture-women with their insatiable appetites and their stink. Ooo, that's when we get to the mythic creature. Like it.

By afternoon it's all over the school that Christi the Harpy is eating out of the trash again. High, shrieking cries follow her through the hallways, and people cover their noses when she walks by.

The history teacher is late, and two boys in front of her open a package of candy and share it. She watches each piece from the bag to their mouths something's missing here and tries it to ignore the way they look at her and laugh. She bites her tongue until it bleeds, but she can't stop the words tumbling out. �Can I have one? Please?� There's a nasty whine on the please it's a word-noun on its own, italicize to make it so, and oh god she wants to die.

�Go buy your own,� they say, and turn their backs to her. She imagines herself jumping over her desk, grabbing their hair, and smashing their smug, fit faces into the table. She imagines stealing their candy. More of that clunky repetitive sentencing. Instead she opens her history book and tries to shut out the sounds of the bag rustling, of chewing and swallowing. She thinks she can hear the sugar melting on their tongues.

She sees the package of crackers first, slipped onto the open page of her book. Then she notices the small, quiet girl sitting next to her. �Listen,� the girl says, as Christi tears open the crackers and puts weird contrast of verb, with having torn open the package just earlier, as hungry as she is. two in her mouth. �I don't know why you eat out of the trash, but you've got to have a reason. I just wanted to tell you...I talk to the counselor. And it helps. Maybe it'll help you, too.�

Christi tries to answer, but the crackers are dry and sticky with peanut butter, all at once. By the time she swallows enough to mumble, �Thanks,� the teacher's there.

The boys throw the last few candies at her after class. They bounce off her face and hit the floor. She's on her knees scrabbling after them before she's even realizes what happened. Above her she hears, �Look at the harpy, crawling on the floor like a dog. Did someone drop some trash, harpy?� Since Harpy is being used in place of her name, I think it would look better capitalized, but that's me. Her tears fall on the backs of her hands.

She thinks of being hungry all night. Why? I want to know. You've hooked me. She picks up the candy and puts in in her mouth, to the squeals and gags of the crowd. At this level she can see the legs of the chairs. One's missing a foot, ending in jagged, sharp metal. She imagines shoving it into the boys' face. Even the imagined blood makes her feel sick. Maybe she can hit herself so hard she'll pass out.

With the three candies in her mouth like little sugary bits of courage, Loving this bit. she stands up. She doesn't see the crowd through her tears; doesn't hear them through the ringing in her ears. They're background buzzing, like classes, like everything that isn't the hunger and the fear.

She walks past the chair. The counselor's office is downstairs. The sugar melts across her tongue slowly. She'll make it.

I'm loving that the "harpy" is less a mystical creature and more an insult to a girl that's starving with hunger and not as clean as the others. It makes me want to know more about Christi's background. Since you're willing to expand the words past 1K, my advice is to go more into why she only gets to eat at lunch. Is it poverty (free lunch), or abuse (her dad won't let her eat/neglects her), or what? That part caught me hard, having known many a person who only got food at school due to poverty and hunger issues. I also like how Christi's constantly thinking of revenge, because it's realistic to think horrible things about people hurting you. The cruelty of children, man.

The ending could probably do with more inner monologue, to "strengthen" the ending. It seems fine to me, but maybe tie the offering of crackers from the quiet girl into them giving her more strength to ignore the crowd? I don't think there needs to be an after scene/ongoing with the counselor, as long as it's said near the end that Christi's going to tell him/her why she's hungry so often.

# ? Mar 4, 2014 19:48

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# ? May 28, 2024 19:13

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Anathema Device posted:

Apparently my thunderdome this week had a weak ending compared to the rest, so I did some rewriting. For anyone who read the original, am I going in the right direction?

For anyone else, how's the ending?

Christi dumps her tray into the trashcan slowly, looking to see what's gone in before. There's half a cookie and a packet of chips, and with her broad body in the way, she can reach in and grab them without anyone noticing.

She's eaten all they've given her, but she's always hungry. She watches herself wrap her salvaged goods in a napkin and stuff them in her sweatshirt pocket, hating it. Hating herself. There's still time before math to find a quiet place to eat.

There's something on the chip bag that's sticky and smelly. She wants to throw it away again. She wants to puke when she pulls her hand from her pocket and sees the trashcan slime on it. She wants to stuff all the chips into her mouth before she's caught.

Christi makes herself walk to the bathroom. She has to pee, but she can't wait that long; there's food in her pockets and she can feel it itching at the back of her mind. She makes herself wash her hands slowly, meticulously. She glances under each door to make sure she's alone.

When she pulls the chips from her pocket she breaks. She wants to throw the food out again. She wants to wash the sticky mess off the bag. Instead she watches herself pinch the corners, reach in, stuff them into her mouth all in one big handful. In the mirror her face is speckled with bits of chip and grease. Crumbs fall on her sweatshirt and stick there, staining it.

She has the cookie into her mouth when the door opens. She chews fast, trying to swallow it, but the chip bag is still on the counter and her mouth is still full when the two girls come in. �Oooh, look,� the first says. �It's the harpy. Come to stuff your face?�

�Look what she's got. Did you pull that out of the trash, harpy?�

�She can't answer, look. Her mouth's full of trash!� the girls make theatrical gagging noises that set off Christi's own gag reflex. She swallows dry cookie and nausea. Throwing up isn't an option; it's just past noon and she doesn't know when she'll get to eat again. Not until lunch tomorrow if her dad finds out she's been stealing treats.

So she swallows and doesn't puke and doesn't cry, because there's no tears left. �Harpy, harpy,� they call her, while she washes her hands and keeps her eyes down so she doesn't see their pretty, thin faces in the mirror. She wishes her class had never studied the mythical vulture-women with their insatiable appetites and their stink.

By afternoon it's all over the school that Christi the Harpy is eating out of the trash again. High, shrieking cries follow her through the hallways, and people cover their noses when she walks by.

The history teacher is late, and two boys in front of her open a package of candy and share it. She watches each piece from the bag to their mouths and tries it ignore the way they look at her and laugh. She bites her tongue until it bleeds, but she can't stop the words tumbling out. �Can I have one? Please?� There's a nasty whine on the please, and oh god she wants to die.

�Go buy your own,� they say, and turn their backs to her. She imagines herself jumping over her desk, grabbing their hair, and smashing their smug, fit faces into the table. She imagines stealing their candy. Instead she opens her history book and tries to shut out the sounds of the bag rustling, of chewing and swallowing. She thinks she can hear the sugar melting on their tongues.

She sees the package of crackers first, slipped onto the open page of her book. Then she notices the small, quiet girl sitting next to her. �Listen,� the girl says, as Christi tears open the crackers and puts two in her mouth. �I don't know why you eat out of the trash, but you've got to have a reason. I just wanted to tell you...I talk to the counselor. And it helps. Maybe it'll help you, too.�

Christi tries to answer, but the crackers are dry and sticky with peanut butter, all at once. By the time she swallows enough to mumble, �Thanks,� the teacher's there.

The boys throw the last few candies at her after class. They bounce off her face and hit the floor. She's on her knees scrabbling after them before she's even realizes what happened. Above her she hears, �Look at the harpy, crawling on the floor like a dog. Did someone drop some trash, harpy?� Her tears fall on the backs of her hands.

She thinks of being hungry all night. She picks up the candy and puts in in her mouth, to the squeals and gags of the crowd. At this level she can see the legs of the chairs. One's missing a foot, ending in jagged, sharp metal. She imagines shoving it into the boys' face. Even the imagined blood makes her feel sick. Maybe she can hit herself so hard she'll pass out.

With the three candies in her mouth like little sugary bits of courage, she stands up. She doesn't see the crowd through her tears; doesn't hear them through the ringing in her ears. They're background buzzing, like classes, like everything that isn't the hunger and the fear.

She walks past the chair. The counselor's office is downstairs. The sugar melts across her tongue slowly. She'll make it.

This story certainly works and your abilities as a writer are clear but I was sorta disgusted by the whole thing and felt pretty uncomfortable when it was done. It came off as sorta contemptuous of the protagonist, as though the whole appeal of the story was just seeing how disgusting this girl is and how terrible her life is as a result. I'm not saying it was intended that way but I figured I might as well let you know what my reaction as a reader was.

# ? Mar 4, 2014 22:00

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Helsing posted:

This story certainly works and your abilities as a writer are clear but I was sorta disgusted by the whole thing and felt pretty uncomfortable when it was done. It came off as sorta contemptuous of the protagonist, as though the whole appeal of the story was just seeing how disgusting this girl is and how terrible her life is as a result. I'm not saying it was intended that way but I figured I might as well let you know what my reaction as a reader was.

This is a well-made point, and probably explains what I was meaning better than I did. You do a good job of setting her up as gross, then someone talks to her and bam. But there's no actual change; what would change this girl? Maybe nothing, but if so you need to show us that.

# ? Mar 4, 2014 23:14

Anathema Device: Dec 22, 2009; by Ion Helmet

Thank you all for your comments. I'm setting to work on another draft of this now.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 00:35

Nethilia: Oct 17, 2012; Hullabalooza '96
Easily Depressed
Teenagers Edition

So after the line-by edits I was given, I redid huge chunks of the story I did for Thunderdome. There was a lot of "why should I care about these characters" and "you're really drilling in things that we have gleaned already" and such. So this is the rewrite, hopefully a little improved.

quote:

Fire-Girl
Thirty minutes after Ross Phillips dropped Widow Barrett off at her house, the place was on fire. The first sign he and Kyle saw was smoke, but they�d both though it was just the chimney. It wasn�t until Ross saw the flames that he realized something was wrong. Kyle ran for the phone to call the firehouse while Ross ran the three miles down the road. He arrived to find the whole place in flames and no sign of Widow Barrett, not even screams for help. When the fire department arrived with townsfolk trailing, there wasn�t much anyone could do but watch the house burn and make sure the flames didn�t spread. Soon all that remained were quickly snuffed-out embers.

The fire chief questioned Ross since he was the last to see her alive. He whispered out what felt like a report, eye downcast to the late March snow. Laura Bartlett had lived alone since her husband Jacob died ten years ago, only going out of her house to town once a week with Ross. He wasn�t much for words, and Kyle kept his distance with people around. The chief clucked his tongue and said a quick prayer for the widow�s soul before motioning for his crew to pack everything up. Within an hour, only Ross and Kyle were left.

Ross hadn�t realized he�d been crying until Kyle squeezed him close, his strong arm around Ross�s shoulders. �Best just to pray for her soul,� he whispered, �and clear the rubble when the thaw comes.� Ross nodded, unable to speak, his words gone with the last embers.

A few steps away into the walk home, a distressed cry caught Ross�s attention. He stopped mid-stride, unsure he�d heard anything. The cry came again. Without another thought he and Kyle turned back and dug through the rubble, lifting charred and crumbling boards as the crying got louder.

Underneath the last one lay a howling baby girl, naked and smeared in ashes except for a bracelet on one wrist with a small bird charm. Ross had seen that bracelet under the edge of Widow Bartlett�s sleeve every week. His hands shook as he picked her up and tucked her up near his chest, and she went quiet in his arms. There was a faint smoky smell on her skin, like a fire just gone out, and not a burn on her.

Kyle�s blue eyes watered. �No one would believe us if we said where we found her.�

�Do we have to?� Ross pushed to his feet, holding the baby against him.

Kyle swallowed before speaking in his sure, calm voice. �No, we don�t have to tell anyone.�

Ross carried her all the way back to their house, wrapped in his coat. Kyle gave her a good wash, revealing smooth pink skin, a curl of red hair, and the same brown eyes. They didn�t know what they would say to people, but Kyle assured Ross it wouldn�t need to be the truth; they�d been able to keep things quiet about them, after all. A week later Kyle, being more social, went ten miles down the road to the Hendersons� place for help. The family was on baby number seven, and Katy had plenty baby supplies, tips�and most importantly, no judgment for two men wanting to raise a child together.

By the time the thaw came through, the widow�s remains were nowhere to be found. The townsfolk decided she�d burnt up in the fire and, whether it was true or not, the local preacher held a small memorial service. The two Phillip men attended with their baby girl Phoebe, just a few months along; Kyle said an old girlfriend of Ross�s had come through and left a baby behind. The town gossips whispered that Ross had never had a girlfriend and pointed at how Kyle kept close to him. But most folk said it wasn�t polite to talk about that kind of thing. Whatever the truth was around how Ross and Kyle had got the girl, it wasn�t coming out. Too many questions got unwanted answers. They�d raise Phoebe right, if different.

Phoebe Phillips spent lifetime number eight near a small country town that grew out over the years, with Papa Ross and �Uncle� Kyle spoiling her as much as two farmers could afford. Ross drove the buggy until Kyle got his first car when she was seven, but Ross never got used to driving. Phoebe was smarter than all the children in her class at Main Street School, especially at history�she remembered everything�and at graduation she would have been the valedictorian if she was a boy. Ross saved enough to send her off to college (a first for her); Kyle insisted it wasn�t a waste to educate a girl. She got her teacher�s certification and took the job teaching first grade at her old school. When Bobby Walker asked her to marry him she turned him down, since she didn�t want marriage this time, but that wasn�t his business to know. Ross and Kyle spent their golden years on the farm after retiring; as times changed, Phoebe stopped calling Kyle �uncle� and started calling him Papa, like she�d always wanted. Phoebe took over driving after Kyle�s vision started to go. Ross died fall �78; Kyle, heartbroken, followed summer �79, leaving Phoebe with an ache of loss and the soft silence of being alone again.

Ninety-two years to the day that she�d been found, Phoebe Phillips came home, set her car keys down on the counter, picked up the picture of the three of them she kept next to the bed�she always held a family picture�and laid down. As the heat rose around and her eighth cycle ended, the fire caught everything around her but her silver phoenix bracelet.

Whoever found her this time, she�d always honor Ross and Kyle. They�d been the best parents she�d ever had.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 04:56

elfdude: Jan 23, 2014; Mad Scientist

I would suggest you redo the tense. Maybe it's just me but present tense stories bug the hell out of me. It feels awkward to read something that supposed to be happening as you read it.

Can someone give me a critique on this story? It's just something I wrote for the hell of it:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15vAAJQsxPFUzJ5fjOvYWowEBG8e51udYzswuYQWWrSQ/edit?usp=sharing

I'm specifically working on balancing description with action and punctuation.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 07:13

Anathema Device: Dec 22, 2009; by Ion Helmet

Nethilia posted:

So after the line-by edits I was given, I redid huge chunks of the story I did for Thunderdome. There was a lot of "why should I care about these characters" and "you're really drilling in things that we have gleaned already" and such. So this is the rewrite, hopefully a little improved.

I wish I had good news for you, but I actually enoyed the original version more. It feels like you tried to answer the question �why should we care?� with �BECAUSE THEY ARE GAY PARENTS! That's not bad, just different!� I don't care more because it's a political issue; I want to care about the people. I liked how subtle that was in the original draft. In this one you could use it as a source of character development, but you never really go deeper.

Major notes: POV shifting. You're going to have to shift at some point, because you start out following Ross and finish after his death, but in the middle you skip to Kyle and the town as a whole. The strongest parts of this are in more limited point of view, so I'd recommend following Ross until the funeral and then showing us Phoebe�s world through her own eyes. If you must show us town gossip through omniscient POV, have a clear change into Phoebe�s POV, not a gradual fade.

I want to know why Ross and Kyle were Phoebe�s favorite parents, not just hear you tell me they were. I also liked parts of the first version better; it set the era more clearly. So I'm splicing bits of both together in the line-by-line. Italics are from the original

quote:

Fire-Girl
Thirty minutes after Ross Phillips dropped Widow Barrett off at her house, the place was on fire. The first sign he and Kyle saw was smoke, but they�d both though it was just the chimney. It wasn�t until Ross saw the flames that he realized something was wrong. Kyle ran for the phone to call the firehouse while Ross ran the three miles down the road. He arrived to find the whole place in flames and no sign of Widow Barrett, not even screams for help. When the fire department arrived with townsfolk trailing, there wasn�t much anyone could do but watch the house burn and make sure the flames didn�t spread. Soon all that remained were quickly snuffed-out embers.

The fire chief questioned Ross since he was the last to see her alive. He whispered out what felt like a report, eye downcast to the late March snow. Laura Bartlett had lived alone since her husband Jacob died ten years ago, only going out of her house to town once a week with Ross. He wasn�t much for words, and Kyle kept his distance with people around. The chief clucked his tongue and said a quick prayer for the widow�s soul before motioning for his crew to pack everything up. Within an hour, only Ross and Kyle were left.

Ross hadn�t realized he�d been crying until Kyle squeezed him close, his strong arm around Ross�s shoulders. �Best just to pray for her soul,� he whispered, �and clear the rubble when the thaw comes.� Ross nodded, unable to speak, his words gone with the last embers.

The fire chief asked Ross questions as kindly as he could, ~~with him being~~ since he'd been the last person to see her. �Just the widow?�

Ross nodded. �Yes sir. Just brought her back from town an hour ago. She only leaves to go shopping once a week.�

�Any family?�

�Not since Jacob died ten years ago.�

The chief clucked his tongue. �A shame. Lord take her up.�

The crowd left, with Ross and Kyle the last two standing. Ross hadn�t realized he�d been crying until Kyle set an arm around his shoulders and squeezed him close. �Best just to pray for her soul,� he whispered, �and clear the rubble when the thaw comes.�

This dialogue is good. It tells us more about Ross and Kyle than the paragraph that replaced it: they drive her to town every week, they feel responsible for coming back in the spring.

A few steps ~~away~~ into the walk home, a distressed cry caught Ross�s attention. He stopped mid-stride, unsure he�d heard anything. The cry came again. ~~Without another thought~~ he and Kyle turned back and dug through the rubble, lifting charred and crumbling boards as the crying got louder.�

Underneath the last one lay a howling baby girl, naked and smeared in ashes except for a bracelet on one wrist with a small bird charm. Ross had seen that bracelet under the edge of Widow Bartlett�s sleeve every week. His hands shook as he picked her up and tucked her up near his chest, and she went quiet in his arms. There was a faint smoky smell on her skin, like a fire just gone out, and not a burn on her.�

Kyle�s blue eyes watered. �No one would believe us if we said where we found her.�

�Do we have to?� Ross pushed to his feet, holding the baby against him.�

Kyle swallowed before speaking in his sure, calm voice. �No, we don�t have to tell anyone.� I really like the original dialogue here, too.

Ross carried her all the way back to their house, wrapped in his coat. Kyle gave her a good wash, revealing smooth pink skin, a curl of red hair, and the same as what? brown eyes. ~~They didn�t know what they would say to people, but Kyle assured Ross it wouldn�t need to be the truth; they�d been able to keep things quiet about them, after all.~~ You already presented this as a problem and solved it. A week later Kyle, ~~being more social~~, Don't tell us, show us in his interactions with the Henderson's went ten miles down the road to the Hendersons� place for help. The family was on baby number seven, and Katy had plenty baby supplies, tips�and most importantly, no judgment for two men wanting to raise a child together.� You tell this happens. I'd like to see how Katy reacts to the baby showing up � and you can start the lie about Ross's girlfriend spreading here, too. Does Katy buy it, or does she nod knowingly and help them spread it even though she knows the truth?

By the time the thaw came through, the widow�s remains were nowhere to be found. The townsfolk decided she�d burnt up in the fire and, whether it was true or not, the local preacher held a small memorial service. The two Phillip men attended with their baby girl Phoebe, just a few months along; Kyle said an old girlfriend of Ross�s had come through and left a baby behind. The town gossips whispered that Ross had never had a girlfriend and pointed at how Kyle kept close to him. But most folk said it wasn�t polite to talk about that kind of thing. Whatever the truth was around how Ross and Kyle had got the girl, it wasn�t coming out. Too many questions got unwanted answers. They�d raise Phoebe right, if different.� This paragraph is your first big POV shift. Either show Ross and Kyle's reactions to the rumors, or skip them. We know there's no body, too.

Phoebe Phillips spent lifetime number eight near a small country town that grew out over the years, with Papa Ross and �Uncle� Kyle spoiling her as much as two farmers could afford. Ross drove the buggy until Kyle got his first car when she was seven, but Ross never got used to driving. Phoebe was smarter than all the children in her class at Main Street School, especially at history�she remembered everything�and at graduation she would have been the valedictorian if she was a boy. Ross saved enough to send her off to college (a first for her); Kyle insisted it wasn�t a waste to educate a girl. She got her teacher�s certification and took the job teaching first grade at her old school. When Bobby Walker asked her to marry him she turned him down, since she didn�t want marriage this time, but that wasn�t his business to know. Ross and Kyle spent their golden years on the farm after retiring; as times changed, Phoebe stopped calling Kyle �uncle� and started calling him Papa, like she�d always wanted. Phoebe took over driving after Kyle�s vision started to go. Ross died fall �78; Kyle, heartbroken, followed summer �79, leaving Phoebe with an ache of loss and the soft silence of being alone again.� This feels really rushed. Slow it down. Put us in Phoebe�s point of view the way you put us in Ross's at the beginning. What's it like being an adult trapped in a child's body? Show us why Ross and Kyle are awesome parents. Show us how they parent Phoebe, if you're going to make this about gay parenting.

Ninety-two years to the day that she�d been found, Phoebe Phillips came home, set her car keys down on the counter, picked up the picture of the three of them she kept next to the bed�she always held a family picture�and laid down. As the heat rose around and her eighth cycle ended, the fire caught everything around her but her silver phoenix bracelet.

Whoever found her this time, she�d always honor Ross and Kyle. They�d been the best parents she�d ever had.

I like the last two paragraphs. You settle into Phoebe's POV and give us a nice little epilogue to your story.

elfdude posted:

I would suggest you redo the tense. Maybe it's just me but present tense stories bug the hell out of me. It feels awkward to read something that supposed to be happening as you read it.

Can someone give me a critique on this story? It's just something I wrote for the hell of it:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15vAAJQsxPFUzJ5fjOvYWowEBG8e51udYzswuYQWWrSQ/edit?usp=sharing

I'm specifically working on balancing description with action and punctuation.

Are you suggesting I move "Harpy" out of present tense? You don't clarify who you're talking to. I'll crit your story if you leave a nice in-depth crit for someone else; putting down in detail what works and doesn't will help you write better.

Anathema Device fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Mar 5, 2014

# ? Mar 5, 2014 07:59

elfdude: Jan 23, 2014; Mad Scientist

Anathema Device, my bad, I figured it was obvious. Yeah I was suggesting that I don't like harpy in present tense. For example just rewriting the first paragraph as is in past tense reads much better imo. The writing otherwise is quite good although it lacks a story 'componenet' the characterization itself is intriguing. I've only seen a few stories written in present tense that manage to pull it off and fewer still that still don't sound better in past tense.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 08:26

elfdude: Jan 23, 2014; Mad Scientist

Anonymous Robot:

quote:

Inside, the diner was nearly vacant. The broad-shouldered cook regarded him with a quiet nod. At the other end of the room, a young man sat in a booth, smoking a cigarette and staring at the table. Roger took a seat at the counter. �I�ll take a cup of coffee, please.� My first impression seems about as empty as the bar, give some characterization to the environment and the bar to make it more interesting, if this happens in the middle of your story then that might not be necessary but setting up an environment this bland tells us not to care about it

The cook eyed him. �Ten cents.� explain the cook's reaction with some more detail, you basically just said looked at him so I have the picture of disembodied eyes and broad shoulders, I have no sense of this person he's interacting with

Roger reached back into his pocket, taking his wallet in hand. �Could you make change for a dollar?� He asked, placing the note onto the counter. Bland.

The cook frowned, turning his eyes up from the dollar back to Roger. �Sorry mister. We don�t take green money, here.� Telegraphic. Description. Is. Boring. We don't have any characterization yet and action is taking place which means we can't really give any real detail or understanding to the action itself; even mundane action like this needs to be based between two characters or it should just be summarized and not detailed at all.

Roger looked up at him. �Pardon?� The man from the booth had gotten up, and stood beside them now. He placed a coral pink banknote upon the counter. I get the sense that this entire story is taking place between three silhouettes of men

�This one�s on me, friend. You�re not from around here, right?� He smiled. �I knew it. Come on over and sit with me, will ya?� How does he know he's not from around there? Sure he used the wrong money but is that it?

Roger took a seat across from his sponsor. The man was wearing khaki pants, polished black shoes, and a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled past the elbow. Don't describe what he's wearing, describing the feeling he gets from what he's wearing. Sometimes you might describe a single article in detail but in general we can imagine him clothed. Do you examine each article of clothing on each person you look at? No you get an impression. Don't describe things which aren't important exhaustively, your goal with description here should be to characterize and give some feeling to the characters not to dress a doll His hair was sandy blonde, and his eyes a steely blue. Weak description There was something wrong with them; it was like he couldn�t see you, as if he were looking over your shoulder instead of at you. This is closer to good characterization but it still needs some work He looked back at the counter, before explaining, �They only take Conners, here. Same as everywhere in town.�

�It�s company scrip?� Who's talking and why? I get that I could assume it here but it's always risky to leave thing to assumptions and misses a critical point to describe what's happening and build more characterization that you're still missing

�They say it�s so we don�t have to pay out in taxes, or something like that.� He bit his bottom lip, looking away for a moment. �You�re with the government, aren�t you?� How does he know this, reacting before description of what he's reacting to is clumsy and misleading, now I have to completely change my assumptions so far which breaks the flow of the story

Roger nodded. �My name is Roger Keyes. I�m with the Bureau.� Boring conversation, telling. It's fine if you're telling after you've built some characterization but you just lead us on with a nobody, then a government dude, now he's from the bureau as in an agent or something, it's irritating to have to reorder your assumptions in a story.

The man rocked his upper body back and forth, clasping his hands together. �Oh, I knew it when I seen you. I knew you�d come- I�ve been here, waiting, because everybody what comes into town stops here first.� He raised his voice. �I�ve been here every day, haven�t I Frank?� *sigh* now the other guy doesn't seem to be the same person, where's this speaking style coming from? How did he know it by looking at him.

�Day and night�, answered the cook. So the guy has been there 24/7? Does he show it at all?

He leaned in closer, lowering his tone once more. �You came looking for the bomber. And you�ve found him. My name is George Metesky, sir, and I�d like to commit myself to justice.� What is happening now? I'm totally lost. Why would the man turn himself in, why would he buy a drink? Too many questions, not enough interest in the story itself to care.

Roger took a sip from his coffee, looking to at or towards George from across the dark surface of the mug. He�d been on the case for years, and to have the perpetrator land so cleanly in his lap- it didn�t seem right. Well at least he's parodying the same feeling I'm having. �You�ve been doing an adequate job of covering your tracks this far- seems to me like you didn�t want to be found. Why the change of heart?� what's with the dashes? Might be a good chance for a small description of the past history here to build suspense

�When I sent that letter, about the war, I did mean it, you know. It was just a ceasefire. But after a while, I started to realize- I am very sick, sir. I�ve done terrible things, and I need to be made to pay. It was like I couldn�t see it, before. Like a haze.� Bland conversational telegraphing of things spoken by bland people in a bland room. You're really testing your reader's patience here

�Why�d you start?� (Roger wouldn't ask this. He's been on this case for a long time- Metesky was never coy about his motive.) I don't understand the paranthesis or the question

�Because. Consolidated Edison hurt me. I gave years of my life to them, and, and there was an accident. My workstation exploded. I breathed in something bad. Look here. A part of the machine flew off and took a bite out of me.� George leaned over the table, pulling down on the neck of his shirt to reveal a peculiar burn mark on his collarbone, a ring with a circle in the center, and a single cross breaking the ring. �I was never the same. They kicked me out on my rear end. Wouldn�t pay my worker�s comp. Ignored me when I wrote to the higher-ups. They pressured my coworkers to perjure against me in court. I couldn�t work, couldn�t even think- I started going wrong, after all that.� A lot of telling, some characterization but bland description

�So Consolidated Edison betrayed you. What�s that got to do with bombing theaters and phone booths?� Not knowing who these people are makes it hard to care

�Oh, well. Something broke in me, Mr. Keyes- that wrath that welled up inside me, it just kept on coming. I struck out at everyone.� He took a moment to regain his composure, drawing a measured breath. How does something break inside someone and then unbreak? I'm more interested in that then this entire sequence.

�After I die, Mr. Keyes, tell them to open my head. You�ll find that a little part of my brain is withered and dead.� No idea who is talking, if it's the same guy, I'm wondering why it's a new paragraph. Most people don't survive brain injuries like this, another opportunity for some characterization missed

Roger watched George from across the table. He studied the man, who curled in toward himself as he rubbed granules of sugar between his fingertips. Some ok description here He tried to picture him, sitting in a workshop and wiring bombs, pasting newspaper clippings into raving threats, speeding towards the city with hate in his heart and a caustic payload in his trunk. (Terrible. There should be a moment of observation here, for sure, but it has to be better than this.) I sort of like the characterization you're finally giving him but I'm at a loss as to why it's important, he pictured it, why is it something he bothered to picture? does it conflict with the man sitting in front of him, is it that hard to picture? Or is it written on the man in some other fashion? George picked up a fork, and began to poke at the power outlet with the prongs of it. O_o electrocuting himself? Why is there a power outlet at a bar?

�You know, there�s two kinds of electric power, alternating current and direct current. Nowadays, almost everything�s on AC. But there are still some places that use DC, mostly in Europe. Con Ed still supports some DC grids; you�ve gotta have two sets of equipment for everything, it�s ridiculous, drags the whole operation down. Who knows, with the war going on, all those American boys coming over, American radios, American hot plates- maybe the balance of power is shifting.� He smiled. (Tangential; the title of this story is 'The War of the Currents', and it is linked to WWII, but this may not be relevant enough to justify.) I'm confused as to why any of this is important

Roger finished his coffee. �Well, Mr. Metesky. I think it�s time to go. Would you stand, please?� Roger stood, and George followed. bored.

Roger took the set of handcuffs from the front-right pocket of his overcoat, fixing them upon George�s wrists. �Just a formality, Mr. Metesky. You�re being placed under arrest by the power of the federal government. You�ll be rendered to Jefferson Market to await trial. Do you understand the charges being brought against you?� The reader certainly doesn't. Not from this excerpt

As Roger spoke, he ran his hands over George�s body, searching his pockets and patting down his shirt. �Yes, sir,� answered George. boring action is boring

Roger stood behind George and began to walk him towards the door, when something caught his eye. Behind the counter, Frank was speaking into a CB radio set. �Are you there, Karen? That milk delivery should be here before sunup, so be ready to put it away when it gets here, alright?� CB radio in a bar? teh gently caress?

Roger looked over to where the radio had been set, by the glass-domed cake plates. �That�s a pretty serious set you�ve got, there. Something wrong with the telephone?� Seriously, how did he not notice this earlier?

�Mhm,� Frank nodded. He stuck his thumb out, as if to indicate Ogdensburg. �Back in town, the copper miners have been on strike. Ugly business. Holed up in the mine during the day, won�t let anybody in. Only come out at night to raise hell. Some of them cut the phone lines just a while back.� Isn't a CB radio at this time almost priceless?

�Why would they do that?� who's talking. What's happening while they're talking?

�Why would they do anything they do? Your guess is as good as mine.� bored.

Roger�s brow creased. boring description is boring �Well, have a nice evening, mister.� (I don't really know how to describe what I want here. Roger is thinking about it, and I want his action to reflect that, but this just isn't good.) To answer your parenthesis, show don't tell. You're telling us by using a word 'creased' instead of explaining the feeling we'd get by looking at him. A lot of people start to think show not tell means not to use a lot of fancy words but that's not quite right, the goal is to describe the situation in a way that explains the motion and what the character is feeling without the need to say it. For example 'Roger's brow creased, and his eyes narrowed as though peering through fog.' or etc, that's not necessarily a good description but it's better than what you have here.

George smiled. �So long, Frank.� bored.

Frank gave another nod. �Take care of yourself, George.� odd.

Overall, the story is utterly boring because I feel like it's happening between shadows, and not actually people. Your lead in paragraph explains more in a couple sentences than this entire piece does. That seems odd to me. You say you struggle with characterization, and that's certainly true here, but your summary to give us background includes pretty solid characterization. Such characterization, even a hint of it, was painfully missing throughout the story. I would google search how to show and not tell. It's definitely a difficult thing, and it's something I'm working on too so don't worry about not getting it, but if you can add it into the story the majority of it would be a lot better. As it is, it's really reliant on dialogue as the central action to move the story forward, and most of the dialogue is boring without any characterization to explain it.

elfdude fucked around with this message at 09:10 on Mar 5, 2014

# ? Mar 5, 2014 09:06

Nethilia: Oct 17, 2012; Hullabalooza '96
Easily Depressed
Teenagers Edition

Anathema Device posted:

I wish I had good news for you, but I actually enoyed the original version more. It feels like you tried to answer the question �why should we care?� with �BECAUSE THEY ARE GAY PARENTS! That's not bad, just different!� I don't care more because it's a political issue; I want to care about the people. I liked how subtle that was in the original draft. In this one you could use it as a source of character development, but you never really go deeper.

Major notes: POV shifting. You're going to have to shift at some point, because you start out following Ross and finish after his death, but in the middle you skip to Kyle and the town as a whole. The strongest parts of this are in more limited point of view, so I'd recommend following Ross until the funeral and then showing us Phoebe�s world through her own eyes. If you must show us town gossip through omniscient POV, have a clear change into Phoebe�s POV, not a gradual fade.

I want to know why Ross and Kyle were Phoebe�s favorite parents, not just hear you tell me they were. I also liked parts of the first version better; it set the era more clearly. So I'm splicing bits of both together in the line-by-line. Italics are from the original.

Mmm. I was going more for the characterization I had been told that I lacked, but I clearly went too far on one spot and not on other aspects of Kyle, Ross, and Phoebe, and was told before that they didn't understand why I didn't just drop Kyle wholly and leave it to Ross to be a single father. (I don't write queer families for politics, I write queer characters cause I am.)

The shift is hard, but I can probably use the last paragraphs to switch from Ross to Phoebe and go more into her life before she cycles again. Since I can go over now, I might go for 1500 words as an upper limit. (I'm prone to "dump words, cut them in edits" from Nano style writing. Setting an upper limit is my current exercise, hence me starting in on Thunderdome.)

I'd cut that original dialogue because the line-by crits by one of the judges said that it sounded like a police report, so I took it out. But I had liked it.

I'll tweak it again, let it sit for a bit, and then put it up for more crits with my regular beta. Thanks a lot for the crit.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 16:13

crabrock: Aug 2, 2002; I

AM

MAGNIFICENT

Anathema: I also agree that 3rd person present tense is really jarring. It's hard for me to get a sports announcer out of my head. "She heads to the trashcan, she's going long.... she reaches, she scores some chips! Oh man!"

I don't think your story really requires it either, but it's always a personal decision.

Myself, I only do present tense in the first person, and usually only when something happens to that character that would leave them unable to tell a story later, or if the knowledge gained after the story ruins how the story would be told.

Your girl would probably tell the story the same even knowing she ended up at the counselor.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 22:00

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

This is a controversial opinion on this forum but I quite like present tense and rhere have been some really good stories and novels done in present tense as well. A lotta posters in CC seem to view it as a gimmick or distraction but I like the sense of immediacy it provides. Since people are used to past tense you may end up drawing attention to the style of your writing rather than the content (though for my part I usually don't find that to be the case) but I yhink present tense stories can work quite well if you do them properly.

In the case of "Harpy" I didn't even really notice that it was present tense when I first read it and now, looking at it again, I think the tense is a strength as it situates the reader more firmly within the protagonists perspective. I liked how the story was written, for me the issue was the lack of any character arc ((hard to do in under a 1000 words) and the general sense that the protagonist could have been handled more sympathetically or at least in a way that humanized her a bit more and didn't make her seem like a total freak (for instance: why is she so uncontrollably hungry? Why does she lack impulse control? Why doesn't she seem to have any sense of dignity?)

# ? Mar 5, 2014 22:25

Anathema Device: Dec 22, 2009; by Ion Helmet

About third person present tense: I use present tense in flash fiction because I find I can use it more efficiently, word-wise. I didn't really think about what tense to put the story in, so I will make a more conscious decision with the next draft.

I'm trying not to respond to the comments about "Harpy" too much because I want the next draft to answer them, rather than me blathering away. I appreciate all of the conversation and input about it.

Nethilia posted:

Mmm. I was going more for the characterization I had been told that I lacked, but I clearly went too far on one spot and not on other aspects of Kyle, Ross, and Phoebe, and was told before that they didn't understand why I didn't just drop Kyle wholly and leave it to Ross to be a single father. (I don't write queer families for politics, I write queer characters cause I am.)

The shift is hard, but I can probably use the last paragraphs to switch from Ross to Phoebe and go more into her life before she cycles again. Since I can go over now, I might go for 1500 words as an upper limit. (I'm prone to "dump words, cut them in edits" from Nano style writing. Setting an upper limit is my current exercise, hence me starting in on Thunderdome.)

I'd cut that original dialogue because the line-by crits by one of the judges said that it sounded like a police report, so I took it out. But I had liked it.

I'll tweak it again, let it sit for a bit, and then put it up for more crits with my regular beta. Thanks a lot for the crit.

Isn't it confusing when crits contradict each other? Go with what seems to work best for you. I think what's needed to justify both Kyle and Ross's characters is to show what each of them brings to Pheobe's life, or what their relationship with each other does, if that makes sense. Right now they're sort of Kyle-and-Ross, rather than distinct people.

I'd love to see how this turns out.

elfdude posted:

I would suggest you redo the tense. Maybe it's just me but present tense stories bug the hell out of me. It feels awkward to read something that supposed to be happening as you read it.

Can someone give me a critique on this story? It's just something I wrote for the hell of it:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15vAAJQsxPFUzJ5fjOvYWowEBG8e51udYzswuYQWWrSQ/edit?usp=sharing

I'm specifically working on balancing description with action and punctuation.

Here's my thoughts: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q0eUl7espE7DvJTY_VydqX3xjViNtAAGnMj5K7h-R48/edit

Edit Oh hell, I don't know if this goes here or in fiction advice and discussion, but "Harpy" is really pushing the edge of my writing ability. I know what I want to get across, but I feel like I don't have the knowledge or the skill to pull it off. It's frustrating.

Anathema Device fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Mar 5, 2014

# ? Mar 5, 2014 23:40

elfdude: Jan 23, 2014; Mad Scientist

Thank you for your critique on that! I agree I probably could've handled the opening better. My goal was to create a world in which things were disappearing yet the main character was the only one who realized this, it's a plot point that I loved to explore but I wasn't sure how to resolve so you've got me there. A lot of the action picked up towards the end and that was me trying to maintain a sense of word count. It's not a thunderdome submission but my typical story is 10+ pages in length which makes writing for the thunderdome habitually problematic. It's nice not to see punctuation comments on every sentence although I think there's still some difficulty.

One question I had was exploring the idea of the sentence structure I was using a lot, could you explain that a bit more? I think I have an idea of what you mean but my grasp of sentence structure is basic to say the least so I don't feel I have much of a grasp to fix it.

Helsing posted:

This is a controversial opinion on this forum but I quite like present tense and rhere have been some really good stories and novels done in present tense as well. A lotta posters in CC seem to view it as a gimmick or distraction but I like the sense of immediacy it provides. Since people are used to past tense you may end up drawing attention to the style of your writing rather than the content (though for my part I usually don't find that to be the case) but I yhink present tense stories can work quite well if you do them properly.

In the case of "Harpy" I didn't even really notice that it was present tense when I first read it and now, looking at it again, I think the tense is a strength as it situates the reader more firmly within the protagonists perspective. I liked how the story was written, for me the issue was the lack of any character arc ((hard to do in under a 1000 words) and the general sense that the protagonist could have been handled more sympathetically or at least in a way that humanized her a bit more and didn't make her seem like a total freak (for instance: why is she so uncontrollably hungry? Why does she lack impulse control? Why doesn't she seem to have any sense of dignity?)

It definitely is a preference thing but I would wager most people are on the side of that feels third person present tense is awkward. It's original and for me that gains huge points but it's difficult for me to appreciate originality when I can picture the same story in third person past tense and it feels a lot stronger overall. I have seen a few authors handle present tense for certain scenes and switch between the two well but again doing so is difficult and if done wrongly massively detracts from a story. The hunger games is perhaps the only real story I can think of in present tense but even that I'm not sure wouldn't have been a richer story in past tense. Then again the hunger games was a wonderfully successful book and several sci fi dystopia books handle it pretty well so there's that but I'm hard pressed to claim it as a strength of the writing and not simply a self-imposed handicap by a skilled author.

elfdude fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Mar 6, 2014

# ? Mar 6, 2014 05:01

angel opportunity: Sep 7, 2004; Total Eclipse of the Heart

As far as my crit of Fire Girl:

I was critting on how it read as is. I think it had some deep structural problems, and my advice to "cut the extra character and cut the 'police report'" was made in the context of "If you cut these out, you have room to flesh out other stuff," but you still have to choose wisely what you will flesh out instead.

It feels a bit like you can't decide if you want the story to focus on Phoebe or on the parents, and it suffers for that. I think it would be better to have it completely from Phoebe's perspective, and you could even show her reactions to "I have two fathers, oh my!" since she is from a different, older generation than them. That's a kind of cool premise you have, but all we see from Phoebe's eight lifetimes is that she does well in school. Show us snippets throughout her life, show us cool details. Is she only able to process all her old memories when she hits like three or four years old, or can she--unlike other one-day old infants--see and process and understand everything? If it's the latter, you could show her confusion in these two men who live together and act like a man and woman are taking care of her, then show how it changes her feelings toward these kinds of relationships, and show how it improves her as a person while simultaneously giving us an idea of what great parents these guys are and how much they love her.

Sorry if my crits were confusing, but the "cut this," and "cut this" or "this reads boring" type advice is just trying to help you show you a prose-level idea of what is working and what is not; the line-by-lines are not really a suggestion to just cut or change what I mark in a line-by-line, and then your story is good. It should give you an idea of what themes or ideas you did well, then by cutting certain things you gain more room to add other ideas. In this story I think you have a nice idea, but you need to fix the focus and immediacy of it for it to have emotional weight. Do everything you can to show the relationship between these three people rather than all the mundane details of the fire, the factoids about how well she does in school, etc.

# ? Mar 6, 2014 05:12

The Saddest Rhino: Apr 29, 2009; Put it all together.
Solve the world.
One conversation at a time.

Nethilia posted:

Mmm. I was going more for the characterization I had been told that I lacked, but I clearly went too far on one spot and not on other aspects of Kyle, Ross, and Phoebe, and was told before that they didn't understand why I didn't just drop Kyle wholly and leave it to Ross to be a single father. (I don't write queer families for politics, I write queer characters cause I am.)

The shift is hard, but I can probably use the last paragraphs to switch from Ross to Phoebe and go more into her life before she cycles again. Since I can go over now, I might go for 1500 words as an upper limit. (I'm prone to "dump words, cut them in edits" from Nano style writing. Setting an upper limit is my current exercise, hence me starting in on Thunderdome.)

I'd cut that original dialogue because the line-by crits by one of the judges said that it sounded like a police report, so I took it out. But I had liked it.

I'll tweak it again, let it sit for a bit, and then put it up for more crits with my regular beta. Thanks a lot for the crit.

I think the problem with your story is that there are two stories (or rather, one story in two very different "styles") you are trying to fit in one. These two are:

1. The narrower storyline of Kyle and Ross discovering Phobe
2. The wide net casting over the whole life of Phobe

You need to figure out which one you want to focus on. Based on your comment here I'm assuming you would rather focus on the narrower Kyle-Ross story.

In my crit to your story I had suggested that you read A Hundred Years of Solitude, which does the 2nd "wide net" type of storytelling very well. However, since you are going for the narrow version I would propose that you cut out most of the whole "phobe's life in a flash" bit - specifically, the paragraph on her lifetime no. 8 with farmers taking care cars driving being in love dying etc.

Make the life events more human. Actually show us, rather than tell us, what happened when Ross/Kyle were spoiling her. What she did that made her smart. What they did when she wanted to get educated, when she questioned her choice to marry, when one died and the other followed a year later.

This is more specific, but I think your whole beginning should just be cut out completely and immediately begin with them discovering the child, so you get the much more interesting hook of "a child found in the ashes of a burnt house!", rather than what seem like two persons meandering about with the fire department.

# ? Mar 6, 2014 06:48

elfdude: Jan 23, 2014; Mad Scientist

A new story for y'all to critique. Still working on description and punctuation but mostly characterization. I know I sort of did a tell instead of show part way through but I couldn't think of a better way to do it without a full on flashback. Hope you can look past that.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tmCUqTLeG2zCpCsztZJVnEAbWBO376xYYfcMo79q9UU/edit?usp=sharing

I'll be doing more critiques on other's stories soon.

# ? Mar 6, 2014 07:35

Nethilia: Oct 17, 2012; Hullabalooza '96
Easily Depressed
Teenagers Edition

systran posted:

As far as my crit of Fire Girl:

I was critting on how it read as is. I think it had some deep structural problems, and my advice to "cut the extra character and cut the 'police report'" was made in the context of "If you cut these out, you have room to flesh out other stuff," but you still have to choose wisely what you will flesh out instead.

It feels a bit like you can't decide if you want the story to focus on Phoebe or on the parents, and it suffers for that. I think it would be better to have it completely from Phoebe's perspective, and you could even show her reactions to "I have two fathers, oh my!" since she is from a different, older generation than them. That's a kind of cool premise you have, but all we see from Phoebe's eight lifetimes is that she does well in school. Show us snippets throughout her life, show us cool details. Is she only able to process all her old memories when she hits like three or four years old, or can she--unlike other one-day old infants--see and process and understand everything? If it's the latter, you could show her confusion in these two men who live together and act like a man and woman are taking care of her, then show how it changes her feelings toward these kinds of relationships, and show how it improves her as a person while simultaneously giving us an idea of what great parents these guys are and how much they love her.

Sorry if my crits were confusing, but the "cut this," and "cut this" or "this reads boring" type advice is just trying to help you show you a prose-level idea of what is working and what is not; the line-by-lines are not really a suggestion to just cut or change what I mark in a line-by-line, and then your story is good. It should give you an idea of what themes or ideas you did well, then by cutting certain things you gain more room to add other ideas. In this story I think you have a nice idea, but you need to fix the focus and immediacy of it for it to have emotional weight. Do everything you can to show the relationship between these three people rather than all the mundane details of the fire, the factoids about how well she does in school, etc.

Oh, I'm not bitching about the crit you gave me or what you said should be cut/what came off as boring. It wasn't too confusing, expect the part where the dialogue was cut. I don't mind my stuff getting ripped to shreds. My betas will tell me if my poo poo is poo poo every time, and I once had to drop an entire chapter because it sucked.

The idea of more details from her side and their relationship is a good thing to aim for, thanks.

The Saddest Rhino posted:

I think the problem with your story is that there are two stories (or rather, one story in two very different "styles") you are trying to fit in one. These two are:

1. The narrower storyline of Kyle and Ross discovering Phobe
2. The wide net casting over the whole life of Phobe

You need to figure out which one you want to focus on. Based on your comment here I'm assuming you would rather focus on the narrower Kyle-Ross story.

In my crit to your story I had suggested that you read A Hundred Years of Solitude, which does the 2nd "wide net" type of storytelling very well. However, since you are going for the narrow version I would propose that you cut out most of the whole "phobe's life in a flash" bit - specifically, the paragraph on her lifetime no. 8 with farmers taking care cars driving being in love dying etc.

Make the life events more human. Actually show us, rather than tell us, what happened when Ross/Kyle were spoiling her. What she did that made her smart. What they did when she wanted to get educated, when she questioned her choice to marry, when one died and the other followed a year later.

This is more specific, but I think your whole beginning should just be cut out completely and immediately begin with them discovering the child, so you get the much more interesting hook of "a child found in the ashes of a burnt house!", rather than what seem like two persons meandering about with the fire department.

I was mostly going for the feel of "for Phoebe it's number eight of she doesn't know how many lives yet, but Kyle and Ross raising her had an significant impact on her life." So more focus on her and her interactions with her parents as she grows up might help, and cut the fire and finding down to less than it is. The whole lifetime details of Phoebe lost a lot in editing when I was aiming for the word count limit.

That's two (edit: three) people that seem to care/want to hear more more about Phoebe's side than Kyle and Ross's, so I'm really going to focus more that way.

Nethilia fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Mar 6, 2014

# ? Mar 6, 2014 07:57

elfdude: Jan 23, 2014; Mad Scientist

Lead out in cuffs posted:

E: Apparently when I posted this I committed the cardinal goonsin of not reading the OP. My quid pro quo review is in the next post, over the page.

OK, here goes. This is a little something I'm eventually planning on submitting to Nature for their Futures section. The brief is 850-950 words words of hard sci fi. However, since I wrote this based somewhat on my own experiences in data science, which even I find a little dry at times, I'm particularly interested in knowing whether a) the jargon-o-metre is in the right place between understandability and hard sciencey-ness, b) the story is compelling, and c) the character is relatable to. All other comments are welcome.

Deathwatch (944 words)

Daniella drove down the cracked, too-wide street in the barren Detroit neighbourhood housing the United Credit data centre.I'm trying to picture what cracked and too-wide means, my mind wonders if you mean 'two'wide rater than too-wide but something tells me you didn't. It's amazingly distracting to the rest of your story and I don't see it as a central bit of description Some days, she wondered why , but the response came quickly: the enormous salary premium. The money UC saved by using a disused telephone exchange left them with more than enough to afford it, and protecting profits through cost-savings was the whole point, wasn't it? Besides, the work was too interesting, the data too big, for her to possibly pass it up. In fact, she suspected that part of UC's decision to base their main data mining centre in a run-down corner nobody wanted to visit was precisely to keep it low key. She had the full purchase histories, credit records, demographics (actual and inferred) and online activity logs on every one of UC's nearly fifty million customers at her fingertips, and already she had worked magic with it.There's nothing technically at issue here but I feel like I'm having difficulty understanding what you're talking about

She reminisced over her achievements as she passed the discrete but formidable perimeter security and into the Faraday-caged office area, her phone bleating plaintively about the lack of signal. Marriage had been her greatest success to date. With the right combination of features -- certain purchases, subtle changes in credit rating indicative of emotional distress, income for striation -- all normalised to county-level census data and trained with the right classifier, she could predict when a customer was about to marry (with cross-validated PPV of 0.98), or divorce (PPV=0.97). Working with the production team, she had optimised the classifier for speed, validated on a follow-up cohort, and rolled it out as a secure internal service to account managers country-wide. She'd had some doubts about the sales execs' idea of increasing credit limits to cover wedding or divorce costs, but UC did also offer preferential rates on florists, catering, honeymoon vacation packages, divorce lawyers and psychotherapy. Besides, the intellectual challenge of the problem was what really moved her. I'm not sure what you're explaining here, I get that she runs numbers to make marketing predictions but what did she do with them? It seems odd that someone would not want to extend credit, credit functions primarily through accruing interest on debt which individuals can not pay but do make payments on. The goal is that the debt and interest load exceeds or equals the ability of the client to pay which in turn solidifies their continued contribution to the account

The latest project, now that was a challenge: suicide prediction, or "deathwatch", as they'd begun to call it. She had no idea where UC had dug up the training data -- data sharing agreements with life insurance companies, probably -- but that had been the least of her problems. She'd had to cast her net wide for inputs, and feature selection had been tricky. Still, the right types of credit card payments, web browsing trails winding through suicide prevention websites, and social media posts both from the imminently deceased and their "friends" could be most revealing when sifted from the noise. She'd even run literature miners over the suicide research corpus. And finally, it had worked. She had a developed a rock-solid, tightly bounded score for six-month suicide risk. For a while, after UC had rolled it out and the first lives had been saved by trained (credit) counsellors, she had begun to feel like she was changing the world. This doesn't make a lot of sense, most companies use this data for mortality insurance taken out on their clients and employees, i.e. most customers are worth more dead than alive

But this morning, as she sat at her plush, three-monitor workstation, something had been bothering her. She had been running diagnostics on the deathwatch predictions since the interventions, and the positive effect was quite visible. Yet, quite a few of the predicted suicides seemed to happen anyway, and she was determined to find the pattern. As she set up the analysis on the compute cluster, she idly flipped through some of the other data scientists' code on the network drive, her eye stopping on a folder titled "Suicide Cost-Benefit Analysis". Determining exactly what the main script was doing would take some time, but the main function took in a personal identifier, and spat out a score. She had a hunch, and set up a quick run over a subsample of the suicide predictees. The score gave an almost perfect stratification. Ah that's what the issue was I see

She stormed into her manager's office.
"You're just letting them die!"
"Daniella, Daniella, "
"I found the cost benefit script. I know. When they aren't valuable enough to UC, they don't get an intervention."
"Come now, the counselling costs money, and we have an obligation to our shareholders to turn a profit. We have to know when the cost of the counselling exceeds the predicted future lifetime profit from the customer. And it's not like we're heartless; we send them a letter suggesting they get counselling. You should know ..."
Her mind numbing as the impenetrable miasma of business jargon enfolded her, she nodded, meakly, in compliance. This seems more probable now, what's interesting is that she didn't realize this earlier

Eventually she shuffled back to her desk in a daze, and too drained for real work, opened her inbox to an email from Mom which turned her blood cold. Dad had received a strange letter from the credit card company, suggesting he look into counselling.The sentence structure here reads funny, I get what you're getting at but I'm not sure

Suddenly, she was alert again. The records were de-identified, but picking Dad out was easy enough. Her palms sweated as she began running him through the suicide risk predictor, adding a new refinement she'd been working on to predict time of suicide. Her clenched fingers slipping on the keys, she started the cost-benefit script in parallel.

The prediction confirmed her fears -- his suicide risk was through the roof. The cost-benefit analysis hardly surprised either. Dad had always been careful with his money. Eyes transfixed to the screen as the time predictor churned away, Daniella's thoughts raced. Should she run to the smoking balcony so she could call home? The sudden flicker of the script completing decided her, as it predicted a single day. That day. Some sentence structure issues here present readability difficulties, for example decided her is awkward.

She floated to the balcony, her damp fingers slipping on the touchscreen as she dialled home. Each ring drew the knot in her stomach tighter, and Mom's frenzied voice rang out like a gong.
"Daniella? Daniella! It's horrible.... your father ... shotgun ... outside ... shed ..."
"He's dead, Daniella! Dead!"

Overall, I like how you handle a very technical subject but I get the feeling that if I wasn't more familiar with the terms that I wouldn't be able to follow this. Unfortunately, credit counseling doesn't cost creditors money it just lowers their future profits in an effort to prevent bankruptcy and thus prevent a discharge of the debt accrued. I'm not sure what the linkage between suicide prevention and credit counselling is however, you should explore that more, how does credit counselling prevent suicide when the primary problem with suicide is depression? Lastly as far as I know the money from mortality insurance typically far exceeds the amount of money that a single employee or debtor is worth which is why companies will often invest on it (in the US this is legal and can be kept secret) so it might be more interesting for the companies to use such an accurate script (six months is beyond some of the best predictions available with the largest organizations with the largest supercomputers) to bias the outcome towards actually encouraging suicide rather than discouraging it.

Anyways, a great story I think. There was some clumsiness at parts but I don't see that as things that can't be fixed and the background concept is compelling to me. Perhaps I'm biased because I have a business degree.

# ? Mar 6, 2014 22:36

Starter Wiggin: Feb 1, 2009; Screw the enemy's gate man, I've got a fucking TAIL!
Do you know how crazy the ladies go for those?

elfdude posted:

A new story for y'all to critique. Still working on description and punctuation but mostly characterization. I know I sort of did a tell instead of show part way through but I couldn't think of a better way to do it without a full on flashback. Hope you can look past that.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tmCUqTLeG2zCpCsztZJVnEAbWBO376xYYfcMo79q9UU/edit?usp=sharing

I'll be doing more critiques on other's stories soon.

I got this up for you, ask if here's any questions. Overall it's ok, it just needs work on the middle.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IUUqweAwRaT1aTNYHF36ZWJh3rZI0X80C7rRcYvTBKU/edit?usp=sharing

Anyone mind critting this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TlokknRLdDhcvvGsEgyeXSlgj0rDVGbZxz8bb0Hbqqo/edit?usp=sharing

It's for my dome brawl, prompt "pack mentality".

# ? Mar 6, 2014 22:40

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Starter Wiggin posted:

I got this up for you, ask if here's any questions. Overall it's ok, it just needs work on the middle.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IUUqweAwRaT1aTNYHF36ZWJh3rZI0X80C7rRcYvTBKU/edit?usp=sharing

Anyone mind critting this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TlokknRLdDhcvvGsEgyeXSlgj0rDVGbZxz8bb0Hbqqo/edit?usp=sharing

It's for my dome brawl, prompt "pack mentality".

Decent voice, no glaring errors, nothing really happens. 'character wants x, character gets x, yayyyy' isn't a story.

Lake Jucas, feel free to pm me for a crit of yours.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Mar 6, 2014

# ? Mar 6, 2014 23:10

elfdude: Jan 23, 2014; Mad Scientist

I like the story but it does seem a bit bland. Definitely better at punctuation than I am. :P

The one thing I think it's missing is a sense of suspense. I mean it seems like a difficult thing to really go into with the way the story is worded. The other thing is that while you characterize the backpack it doesn't seem like its actually doing much to accomplish the end goal. He gets bought because apparently he has a dora the explorer tattoo on him, and he's only ten dollars. Both of which are inherent properties of it not something he accomplished or did. We're missing a sense of suspense, conflict, and accomplishment.

# ? Mar 7, 2014 00:24

Anathema Device: Dec 22, 2009; by Ion Helmet

elfdude posted:

One question I had was exploring the idea of the sentence structure I was using a lot, could you explain that a bit more? I think I have an idea of what you mean but my grasp of sentence structure is basic to say the least so I don't feel I have much of a grasp to fix it.

The two sentences I commented on were: �He felt powerless, and stumbled outside. The old lady was talking to several police officers, and pointed at him.�

I think my issue is that when you use them repeatedly you end up with a list of events. It's essentially saying: �He felt powerless. He stumbled outside. The old lady was talking to several police officers. She pointed at them.� That sort of listing of events is something you're moving away from, which is good.

I might rewrite that as: �Feeling powerless, he stumbled outside. The old lady was talking to several police officers. When she saw him, she pointed him out.� Or: �He felt powerless. When he stumbled outside, the old lady was talking to several police officers. She pointed at him.� Neither of these are objectively better in any way. They just change the rhythm a bit to make it less like a list.

If you feel like you have a list of events and want to break it up, consider thinking about the details more. You might write, �Feeling powerless, he stumbled outside. The old lady stood on her front step in her dirty gardening clothes talking to three police officers. She pointed at him with a pink-gloved finger.� This is also not objectively better, but it gives a sense of what things look like.

Having called you out on this, I had to fix a few instances of it in my story.

Speaking of which, here's �Harpy� again, still in third person present because I like it that way. The parentheses feel gimmicky, which is why I cut them from the original. I'm not sure how else to get that information across. I've tried to make Christi more relateable and explain why she does what she does.

Harpy
1075 words

Christi dumps her tray into the trashcan slowly, looking to see what's gone in before. There's half a cookie and a packet of chips, and with her broad (fat, her dad's words follow her, ugly) body in the way, she can reach in and grab them without anyone noticing.

She's eaten all they've given her, but she's always hungry (because you're a glutton, girl.) She wraps her (stolen) goods in a napkin and stuffs them in her sweatshirt pocket, hating herself for doing it. She's got more hunger than pride, and there's still time before math to find a quiet place to eat.

There's something on the chip bag that's sticky and smelly. Her gorge rises when she pulls her hand from her pocket and sees the trashcan slime on it. She wants to stuff all the chips into her mouth (like the fat pig you are) before she's caught.

Christi makes herself walk to the bathroom first. She has to pee, but she can't wait that long; there's food in her pockets and she can feel it itching at the back of her mind. (Is food all you ever think about?) She makes herself wash her hands slowly, meticulously. She glances under each door to make sure she's alone.

When she pulls the chips from her pocket she breaks. She tells herself to throw it out again, or at least to wash the sticky mess off the bag. Instead her fickle body pinches one corner, reaches in, and stuffs them into her mouth all in one big handful. In the mirror her face is speckled with bits of chip and grease. (Fat slob.) Crumbs fall on her sweatshirt and stick there, staining it.

She has the cookie in her mouth when the door opens. She chews fast, trying to swallow it, but the chip bag is still on the counter and her mouth is still full when the two girls come in. �Oooh, look,� the first says. �It's the harpy. Come to stuff your face?�

�Look what she's got,� says the second. �Did you pull that out of the trash, Harpy?�

�She can't answer, look. Her mouth's full of trash!� The girls make theatrical gagging noises that set off Christi's own gag reflex. She swallows dry cookie and nausea. (Throw it up, girl, before it makes you fatter.) That isn't an option; it's just past noon and she doesn't know when she'll get to eat again. Not until lunch tomorrow if her dad finds out she's been stealing treats.

So she swallows and doesn't puke and doesn't cry, because there's no tears left. �Harpy, Harpy,� they call her, while she washes her hands and keeps her eyes down so she doesn't see their pretty, thin faces in the mirror. (You could look like them, if you stopped being a pig.) She wishes her class had never studied the mythical vulture-women with their insatiable appetites and their stink.

By afternoon it's all over the school that Christi the Harpy is eating out of the trash again. High, shrieking cries follow her through the hallways, and people cover their noses when she walks by.

The history teacher is late, and two boys in front of her open a package of candy and share it. She watches each piece from the bag to their mouths (like a bitch dog begging for scraps) and tries to ignore the way they look at her and laugh. She bites her tongue until it bleeds, but she can't stop the words tumbling out. �Can I have one? Please?� There's a nasty whine on the please, and oh god she wants to die.

�Go buy your own,� they say, and turn their backs to her. She imagines herself jumping over her desk, grabbing their hair, and smashing their smug, fit faces into the table. She imagines stealing their candy. Instead she opens her history book and tries to shut out the sounds of the bag rustling, of chewing and swallowing. She thinks she can hear the sugar melting on their tongues.

She sees the package of crackers first, slipped onto the open page of her book. Then she notices the small (thin, perfect) girl sitting next to her. �Hey,� the girl says, as Christi tears open the crackers and shoves two in her mouth, �I'm Ali.�

Christi tries to answer, but the crackers are sticky with peanut butter, and she doesn't know why someone as pretty as Ali wants to talk to her. By the time she swallows enough to mumble, �Thanks,� the teacher's there.

The boys throw the last few candies at her after class. They bounce off her face and hit the floor. She's on her knees scrabbling after them before she even realizes what happened. Above her she hears, �Look at the harpy, crawling on the floor like a dog. Did someone drop some trash, harpy?� Her tears fall on the backs of her hands (crybaby.)

She thinks of being hungry all night. The candy is fuzzy and gritty when she puts it in her mouth. The crowd squeals and gags. At this level she can see the legs of the chairs. One's missing a foot, ending in jagged, sharp metal. She imagines shoving it into the boys' faces.

Then there's a thin pair of legs between her and the boys. �Leave her alone,� Ali says.

�Standing up for the Harpy, Ali? Are you that desperate for friends? Do you like trash, too?� The crowd laughs. Christi doesn't look up; she hiding on the floor (like a wimp) and Ali's taking the abuse for her. The chair's still right there.

(Do it, her father would tell her. Stand up for yourself. Don't make your betters do it for you.) She feels the sharp edges of the metal. She's felt the damage a smooth belt buckle can do to skin, washed the blood out of her shirts. She could make those boys ugly, scared, imperfect. (Like you.)

�She's a hell of a lot nicer than you,� Ali says. Christi's never been called nice. She's never been called anything good. She's crying harder now, and she doesn't even know why. (She's a liar, Christi. She doesn't even know you, you fat bitch.) Christi pulls her hand back, empty, because nice girls don't beat boys up with chairs. Even Christi knows that, and she hungers for praise now with the empty ache that food has never filled.

# ? Mar 8, 2014 01:35

elfdude: Jan 23, 2014; Mad Scientist

Thanks, I have a habit of going to the extreme in response to criticism. I tended to write all of my sentences in the ways you've provided but I got yelled at for doing so, it seems there's a sweet spot in the middle :P I totally agree with you though.

# ? Mar 8, 2014 03:33

Nika: Aug 9, 2013; like i was tanqueray

Anathema Device posted:

revision

I'll take a crack at this...with the caveat that I'm largely a content editor and you may find all of what I say to be woefully unhelpful.

quote:

Speaking of which, here's �Harpy� again, still in third person present because I like it that way. The parentheses feel gimmicky, which is why I cut them from the original. I'm not sure how else to get that information across. I've tried to make Christi more relateable and explain why she does what she does.

Harpy
1075 words

Christi dumps her tray into the trashcan slowly, looking to see what's gone in before. I struggled with this opening sentence, particularly the second half. I don't mind the TPpt like some do, but "looking to see what's gone in before" is a bit messy. I'm not entirely sure that's a grammatically correct construct: "gone" is a past-tense verb, and in this case doesn't have a clear subject attached to it; as such 'gone', in its usage here, damages the health of the sentence. Is there anything wrong with saying "Christi dumps her tray into the trashcan slowly, looking for what's inside." ? As the sentence is written now, out of only 15 words, already four are verbs (dumps, looking, see, and gone), and I would strongly advise revision of those last two if possible. There's half a cookie and a packet of chips, Editor's nitpick, but it's often best to be specific whenever possible so that you give the potential reader a clearer image. Is it really half a cookie and a packet of chips, or Is it half an Oreo and a bag of Fritos? and with her broad (fat, her dad's words follow her, ugly) body in the way, she can reach in and grab them without anyone noticing. She 'can' reach in? Does she actually do it or not?

She's eaten all they've given her, but she's always hungry (because you're a glutton, girl.) She wraps her ~~(stolen)~~ stolen goods in a napkin and stuffs them in her sweatshirt pocket, hating herself for doing it. She's got more hunger than pride, and there's still time before math to find a quiet place to eat. There's a lot of telling in this 'graph. This isn't always bad, but there might be a better way to show how she hates herself, and how much hunger she has vs. pride.

There's something on the chip bag that's sticky and smelly. Would she smell after it is in her pocket, but not before, while it was in the trashcan? Her gorge rises when she pulls her hand from her pocket and sees the ~~trashcan~~ slime on it. we already know where she got it. Also, consider describing the smell/slime, at least with a few strong adjectives.. She wants to stuff all the chips into her mouth (like the fat pig you are) before she's caught.But I thought she was about to vomit because of how disgusting the smell was? Wouldn't that put her off her appetite? If the point is that nothing can put her off her appetite, consider making that a bit more clear.

Christi makes herself walk to the bathroom first. She has to pee, but she can't wait that long; there's food in her pockets and she can feel it itching at the back of her mind. I like the food itching at the back of her mind. Good insight into character. Though consider reversing the order of that sentence, at the semicolon. I think it works better for characterization. ie "Christi makes herself walk to the bathroom first. There's food in her pockets and she can feel it itching at the back of her mind; she has to pee, but she can't wait that long." I'm suggesting this because the way it was originally written makes me think she's about to pee her pants, because you put "bathroom", "pee", and "can't wait that long" all right next to each other. (Is food all you ever think about?) She makes herself wash her hands slowly, meticulously. She glances under each door to make sure she's alone.

When she pulls the chips from her pocket she breaks. What does "break" mean? Is she hyperventilating? sweating? crying? She tells herself to throw it out again, or at least to wash the sticky mess off the bag. Instead her fickle body pinches one corner, reaches in, and stuffs them into her mouth all in one big handful. In the mirror her face is speckled with bits of chip and grease. (Fat slob.) Crumbs fall on her sweatshirt and stick there, staining it. What kind of crumbs? What color do they stain the shirt...and do crumbs often stain things?

She has the cookie in her mouth when the door opens. She chews fast, trying to swallow it, but the chip bag is still on the counter and her mouth is still full when the two girls come in. �Oooh, look,� the first says. �It's the harpy. Come to stuff your face?�

�Look what she's got,� says the second. �Did you pull that out of the trash, Harpy?�

�She can't answer, look. Her mouth's full of trash!� The girls make theatrical gagging noises that set off Christi's own gag reflex. She swallows dry cookie and nausea. (Throw it up, girl, before it makes you fatter.) That isn't an option; it's just past noon and she doesn't know when she'll get to eat again. Not until lunch tomorrow if her dad finds out she's been stealing treats. I like the last sentence and its insight to the character's home life.

So she swallows and doesn't puke and doesn't cry ~~because there's no tears left~~. �Harpy, Harpy,� they call her, while she washes her hands and keeps her eyes down so she doesn't see their pretty, thin faces in the mirror. I like the 'thin' detail she notices. (You could look like them, if you stopped being a pig.) She wishes her class had never studied the mythical vulture-women with their insatiable appetites and their stink.

By afternoon it's all over the school that Christi the Harpy is eating out of the trash again. High, shrieking cries follow her through the hallways, and people cover their noses when she walks by.

The history teacher is late, and two boys in front of her open a package of candy and share it. She watches each piece from the bag to their mouths (like a bitch dog begging for scraps) Ouch. That parenthetical actually hit me. Good work there. and tries to ignore the way they look at her and laugh. She bites her tongue until it bleeds, but she can't stop the words tumbling out. �Can I have one? Please?� There's a nasty whine on the please, and oh god she wants to die. This may or may not be helpful, but I've read a great many third-person works that slip into first person to express very intimate thoughts like 'I want to die'. You might not want to do that, but I think it would have been far more powerful here if I 'heard' it in her own voice. Just a thought.

�Go buy your own,� they say, and turn their backs to her. Slippery characterization, here. Wouldn't they again tease her for her weight and constant eating? Why 'go buy your own'? She imagines herself jumping over her desk, grabbing their hair, and smashing their smug, fit faces into the table. Again, I like the inclusion of 'fit'. She imagines stealing their candy. New 'graph here. Instead she opens her history book and tries to shut out the sounds of the bag rustling, of chewing and swallowing. She thinks she can hear the sugar melting on their tongues. I like the detail of this last line.

She sees the package of crackers first, slipped onto the open page of her book. Then she notices the small (thin, perfect) girl sitting next to her. �Hey,� the girl says, as Christi tears open the crackers and shoves two in her mouth, �I'm Ali.� Geez, she just ate them before the other girl had even introduced her drat self. I think that's good characterisation.

Christi tries to answer, but the crackers are sticky with peanut butter, and she doesn't know why someone as pretty as Ali wants to talk to her. By the time she swallows enough to mumble, �Thanks,� the teacher's there. The last sentence is awkwardly phrased; since the teacher's presence is the sentence's most important detail, consider leading off with that. ie "The teacher arrives before Christi has time to swallow and mumble, "Thanks."

The boys throw the last few candies at her after class. They bounce off her face and hit the floor. She's on her knees scrabbling after them before she even realizes what happened. Above her she hears, �Look at the harpy, crawling on the floor like a dog. Did someone drop some trash, harpy?� Her tears fall on the backs of her hands (crybaby.)

She thinks of being hungry all night. The candy is fuzzy and gritty when she puts it in her mouth. The crowd squeals and gags. At this level she can see the legs of the chairs. One's missing a foot, ending in jagged, sharp metal. She imagines shoving it into the boys' faces. Wait..."Hungry all night"? I thought there had been a time shift to later on in the evening...doesn't this scene take place during the day?

Then there's a thin pair of legs between her and the boys. �Leave her alone,” Ali says.

�Standing up for the Harpy, Ali? Are you that desperate for friends? Do you like trash, too?� The crowd laughs. Christi doesn't look up; ~~she's hiding on the floor~~ ~~(like a wimp)~~ ~~and Ali's taking the abuse for her.~~ The chair's still right there.

(Do it. ~~her father would tell her.~~ ~~Stand up for yourself. Don't make your betters do it for you.~~) She feels the sharp edges of the metal. She's felt the damage a smooth belt buckle can do to skin, washed the blood out of her shirts. She could make those boys ugly, scared, imperfect. (Like you.) The first parenthetical is far more powerful with "do it" alone, and "she feels the sharp edges of the metal" is a massively important detail, so I'd consider ending the 'graph with it...or even putting it in its own.

�She's a hell of a lot nicer than you,� Ali says. How does she say it? Calmly? Is she yelling? Fists clenched? Christi's never been called nice. She's never been called anything good. She's crying harder now, and she doesn't even know why. ~~(She's a liar, Christi.~~ She doesn't even know you, you fat bitch.) Christi pulls her hand back, empty, because nice girls don't beat boys up with chairs. Even Christi knows that, and she hungers for praise now with ~~the~~ an empty ache ~~that food has never filled.~~

A few things:

1. The ending is frustrating because the story, in the span of a few sentences, becomes much ado about nothing. I wanted her to hit those boys over the head! Or else Ali to do it. I really just wanted something to happen.

2. I'm a little iffy on the dialogue. It seems to mirror, at times nearly identically, the prose, the protag's inner thoughts. Why not have it be a little better voiced and tell us something that's not already been said?

Also, I know it's just ghastly to suggest that anything other than "said" can be an appropriate dialogue tag, but me and most of the editors I've known actually disagree with this to some extent. Quite often, while working an MS, I've found that I have to get an author to clarify how a given line is meant to be delivered. Obviously, writing vivid and specific dialogue is the fastest way to achieve this, but an endless barrage of "saids" starts to make it sound like the characters are just flatly reading aloud to each other from a script, even during a very emotional or tense scene.

"Of course, anything can be run into the ground," she ejaculated, "But there really isn't a problem with saying things like shouted, whispered, pleaded, cried, scowled--and intermingling these with strong action can obviate the need for any dialogue tag in many situations."

3. I don't know what your word limit was, if any, but I feel like this story often lacked a necessarily visceral and nasty level of detail, a sense of absolute filth that would have pulled me into the protag's state of mind and made me sympathize/relate better with her. As it's written now, it's detached and feels kind of...clinical?

4. I thought the parentheticals were fine--aside from the extraneous parts I cut.

Anyway, I hope that's helpful for you. I liked the subject matter, and would certainly be interested in reading this as a longer short story, where the characters have a bit more chance to breathe.

Nika fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Mar 8, 2014

# ? Mar 8, 2014 07:18

JuniperCake: Jan 26, 2013

Nika posted:

"Of course, anything can be run into the ground," she ejaculated, "But there really isn't a problem with saying things like shouted, whispered, pleaded, cried, scowled--and intermingling these with strong action can obviate the need for any dialogue tag in many situations."

I agree with you on principle. Said is mostly invisible, but there are other options that can work in some instances. A good strong verb is infinitely better than said + adverb as well. The whole challenge in most situations is to get the right verb for the job.

But if you do decide to go with a verb other than said, be sure to use a word that refers to speech or at least some kind of sound. A scowl refers to a facial expression. You can't scowl (or snarl for that matter) words. You can growl them though.

JuniperCake fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Mar 8, 2014

# ? Mar 8, 2014 21:37

Nika: Aug 9, 2013; like i was tanqueray

JuniperCake posted:

I agree with you on principle. Said is mostly invisible, but there are other options that can work in some instances. A good strong verb is infinitely better than said + adverb as well. The whole challenge in most situations is to get the right verb for the job.

Absolutely. I completely forgot to mention my massive gripe with said+adverb when a stronger verb would have been so much more effective, and in fewer total words to boot. I can't tell you how many times I've edited some variation of the following line:

"Don't leave me," she said, whispering quietly.

to

"Don't leave me," she whispered.

Of course there are lots of other ways to say this or any line without needing a tag at all, but sometimes it works best with one, and sometimes--not often--'said' is not the best choice.

JuniperCake posted:

But if you do decide to go with a verb other than said, be sure to use a word that refers to speech or at least some kind of sound. A scowl refers to a facial expression. You can't scowl (or snarl for that matter) words. You can growl them though.

This is definitely true, though it's strange how often this very rule is broken in a great deal of published fiction. I would never encourage an author to do it, and would never suggest something like that as an edit. But if I'm honest, I actually have to make a conscious effort to catch it, no matter if I'm reading for work or pleasure. That's assuming, of course, that it's not something just completely ridiculous like:

"Take that!" he punched.

Nika fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Mar 9, 2014

# ? Mar 9, 2014 01:14

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Imo every use of a 'said-book' tag or adverb should just trigger a quick 'hang on, do i really need this' internal edit loop. If you need it, then fine, they both have their uses.

# ? Mar 9, 2014 02:23

CommissarMega: Nov 18, 2008; THUNDERDOME LOSER

It's been a long while since I've written anything, but I want to get back into the groove of things. Basically, I want my first few chapters to establish the fantastic as mundane before I start writing the weird poo poo. I'd also like to know about any problems I have writing dialogue, so here's a short snippet from something I've started working on.

quote:

No Drive (Fantasy/Sci-fi, 670 words)

The obelisk stood before Shara, eldritch runes glowing red on its obsidian surface, pulsing with the rhythm of a great beast�s breaths. The chamber was silent, the sole illumination being the deep crimson of the stone pillar.

Shara kicked it.

�Great, there goes everyone�s bonus,� the elf said, running her hand through her hair. Not that she didn�t see this coming, though- the engine was a bit on the old side, after all. It was just that being on the arse-end of Hegemony space meant that engine replacements were going to be a bitch to find. She walked back to the room�s entrance and reactivated the lights, before turning back to the engine. Far as she could tell, the engine was good for one, maybe two more jumps, then-

Something dripped in front of her. Dark brown droplets stained the floor, and Shara looked up, her eyes widening when she saw the creature above- a man-sized centipede stretching forth from the ceiling, two pairs of grotesque, armlike claws located just behind an insectoid head that ended in wicked mandibles bordered on the outside by delicate manipulator tendrils.

But that was not what made Shara jump- it was what the beast held. �Is that...?� she asked, not wanting to believe it.

The centipede nodded, handing Shara the bottle it held. �A bottle of Blackbird, yes,� it said. �Been saving it for a special occasion.�

�You�re an angel, Torch,� Shara said, taking a swig as Torch crawled down from the ceiling beside her. �What? It�s true!� she said when Torch�s carapace rippled blue. �The ugliest angel, let�s be fair, but an angel nonetheless.�

�Doubt it,� Torch replied. �If I were, I�d have brought you a new engine.�

�Hm, good point. What the hells are you doing aboard my ship then, you useless roach?�

�Mooching,� Torch said, crawling towards the engine. �Eating your hair while you sleep.�

�And anyone who actually means it when they call you �roach�?�

�I call it morale-building.�

�Certainly makes me feel better.� Shara took another swig, and sighed as she looked at the engine again. �You think it�d sell for anything?�

�How much you want to sell it for?� Torch asked as he came back.

Shara shrugged. �Enough?�

�Then nope.� He took the drink out of Shara�s hands and had himself a short sip. �So... how bad are things?� he asked, handing the bottle back.

Shara sighed. �We�d be running on fumes and dreams for a while,� she said, �but I�ve got enough saved up to at least pay the crew their salaries. No bonuses though, and if this goes on another six months, it�d be just you and me again.�

�And no lower,� Torch clicked. This time, his carapace grew even redder. �No lower,� he said, trying to reassure himself.

�I�ll drink to that,� Shara groaned, leaning her head back. �Gods, can you imagine how smug Father would be if I moved back in?�

�You can move back in with me,� Torch said. �My hive would love to have you.�

�Like that would stop Father,� Shara said. �He�d set up a covered chair in front of the house every morning, and just smug at me as soon as I stepped out of your place.� She stood up. �Nothing for it- we�re shelling out for a new engine at Elphes,� she said. �Something dwarven, maybe.�

Torch let out a high-pitched chitter. �I thought you wanted to save money?�

�Doesn�t have to be top of the line,� Shara said. �As long as it lasts longer than this lump,� she said, looking up at the stone obelisk, �it�s fine by me.�

�Well, you�re the captain,� she heard Torch say as he came up from behind her.

�And the chief engineer,� Shara reminded him. �And the head negotiator,� she said, waggling her finger as they walked off.

�Yes, yes,� Torch said, placing two arms around the elf. �You�re indispensable. My duties twiddling the navigation controls are surely numbered.�

�And don�t you forget it,� Shara said, placing her own arm around Torch.

As this is the beginning to what I hope would be Chapter 1, there isn't a lot of conflict or resolution, but I hope I've properly set up the problem of the busted engine to be solved later.

# ? Mar 18, 2014 06:08

shooz: Oct 10, 2006; there's no life like no life

CommissarMega posted:

The obelisk stood before Shara, eldritch runes glowing red on its obsidian surface, pulsing with the rhythm of a great beast�s breaths. The chamber was silent,I think you need a period or an "and" here. Without one or the other, you're implying that the chamber was silent because there was no other light source. the sole illumination ~~being~~ was the deep crimson of the stone pillar.

Shara kicked it.

�Great, there goes everyone�s bonus,� the elf said, running her hand through her hair. [Not that she didn�t see this coming, though- the engine was a bit on the old side, after all. It was just that being on the arse-end of Hegemony space meant that engine replacements were going to be a bitch to find. She walked back to the room�s entrance and reactivated the lights, before turning back to the engine. Far as she could tell, the engine was good for one, maybe two more jumps, then-] I'm not sure about writing down her thoughts like this - at least not so early on. I'd rather read about something happening, than her thoughts about buying/fixing an engine.

Something dripped in front of her. Dark brown droplets stained the floor, and Shara looked up, her eyes widening when she saw the creature above Later, you establish that she isn't shocked by the centipede, but by the bottle he's holding. However, here you write that her eyes widen when she sees the centipede.- a man-sized centipede stretching forth from the ceiling, two pairs of grotesque, armlike claws located just behind an insectoid head that ended in wicked what do you mean by wicked here? mandibles bordered on the outside by delicate manipulator tendrils.For me, this is a little too much detail, too many adjectives and too much jargon - especially in one sentence. We all know what centipedes look like. I understand that you're trying to make him seem disgusting, but you'd succeed better with one or two strong details.

~~But that was not what made Shara jump- it was what the beast held.~~ You don't need to hit me over the head with this. It's also not surprising later on if you tell me now. �Is that...?� she asked~~, not wanting to believe it.~~ Why wouldn't she want to believe that it's a bottle of something she clearly likes?

The centipede nodded, handing Shara the bottle it held. �A bottle of Blackbird, yes,� it said. �Been saving it for a special occasion.�

�You�re an angel, Torch,� Shara said, taking a swig as Torch crawled down from the ceiling beside her. �What? It�s true!� she said when Torch�s carapace rippled blue. I like that his colour changes based on his mood. You also imply it nicely, without telling me. �The ugliest angel, let�s be fair, but an angel nonetheless.�

�Doubt it,� Torch replied. �If I were, I�d have brought you a new engine.�

�Hm, good point. What the hells are you doing aboard my ship then, you useless roach?�

�Mooching,� Torch said, crawling towards the engine. �Eating your hair while you sleep." This seems forced. As does the line above.

�And anyone who actually means it when they call you �roach�?�

�I call it morale-building.� I don't get this joke.

�Certainly makes me feel better.� What does? The hair-eating? Or the drink? Shara took another swig, and sighed as she looked at the engine again. �You think it�d sell for anything?�

�How much you want to sell it for?� Torch asked as he came back.

Shara shrugged. �Enough?�

�Then nope.� He took the drink out of Shara�s hands and had himself a short sip. �So... how bad are things?� he asked, handing the bottle back.

Shara sighed. �We�d be running on fumes and dreams for a while,� she said, �but I�ve got enough saved up to at least pay the crew their salaries. No bonuses though, and if this goes on another six months, it�d be just you and me again.�

�And no lower,� Torch clicked. This time, his carapace grew even redder. �No lower,� he said, trying to reassure himself.

�I�ll drink to that,� Shara groaned, leaning her head back. �Gods, can you imagine how smug Father would be if I moved back in?� Does she groan while she says "I'll drink to that" or does she say "Ill drink to that" , take a sip, then lean back and groan, before she says the next sentence? I'm guessing you mean the second option.

�You can move back in with me,� Torch said. �My hive would love to have you.�

�Like that would stop Father,� Shara said. �He�d set up a covered chair in front of the house every morning, and just smug at me as soon as I stepped out of your place.� She stood up. �Nothing for it- we�re shelling out for a new engine at Elphes,� she said. �Something dwarven, maybe.�

Torch let out a high-pitched chitter. �I thought you wanted to save money?�

�Doesn�t have to be top of the line,� Shara said. �As long as it lasts longer than this lump,� she said, looking up at the stone obelisk, �it�s fine by me.�

�Well, you�re the captain,� she heard Torch say as he came up from behind her.

�And the chief engineer,� Shara reminded him. �And the head negotiator,� she said, waggling her finger as they walked off. Not feeling this either

�Yes, yes,� Torch said, placing two arms around the elf. �You�re indispensable. My duties twiddling the navigation controls are surely numbered.� nor this line

�And don�t you forget it,� Shara said, placing her own arm around Torch.

The hook isn't working for me. Shara, whose name my brain keeps auto-correcting to Sarah, needs to buy a new engine. If she doesn't succeed, she can either a) return to her dad who is gonna gloat or b) return to her best friend Torch's hive and her father would gloat. This isn't really a risk though, since she has the money for a new engine, so I expect we're gonna see her go buy a new engine and possibly lose her crew. Not super interesting. Then again, I guess it's fine as long as something interesting happens in the next chapter/we find out what's at stake.

The dialogue is boring. The characters sound the exact same, and use "funny" stock phrases, especially toward the end. The dialogue reminds me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which worked well enough on screen, but I'm not sure if it works here. I guess you're trying to show the two joking around with each other, having fun etc. But it's not funny when I read it.

There's also a lack of description, or just plain out showing what's going on. As far as description goes, I do not mean that you should describe every single thing in the room. I'm talking about adding a detail here, a detail there - details that make the story a little more tangible. Same goes for the action between the dialogue - which is bland. She sighs, groans and runs her hand through her hair. The reason we obviously use these types of descriptions is to show, rather than tell, how a character feels. And there's nothing wrong with these words in themselves, I suppose, but they are so often used as labels for a feeling that they are almost invisible to me. They aren't precise, and so the story isn't vivid. Here's a bad and exaggerated example of what I mean:

He unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat down. He cleared his throat. The man on the other side of the table looked at him and smiled.

versus

He unbuttoned his suit jacket - a cheap two-piece he picked up at H&M - and sat down in the squeaky chair. He cleared his throat. The man on the other side of the table was observing him, his lips stretched into a thin smile.

Personally, I get a lot more mood and info from the second version. The first one is ambiguous. I don't know anything about the situation. The second one tells me he's probably embarrassed about his cheap suit, that the room is silent and that the situation is awkward etc. The problem with the first example is that it's not giving me much of anything - I'm not immersed in the story. Now, less is also more, so one should never over-do it, but excluding the bit about the mandibles and stuff, you're not giving me anything much to go on here.

I realize that the wall of text might seem harsh. Your writing isn't bad, however; it's clear and to the point. Nor did I need to force myself to read through it. The things I criticised didn't jump at me, I had to think long and hard about why I didn't get into it. And I'm obviously not sure that I'm right about any of it. I still hope I was of some use.

# ? Mar 19, 2014 00:32

Djeser: Mar 22, 2013; it's crow time again

I'm not a critmaster like any of the Thunderdome old guard, but let's give this a whirl.

quote:

The obelisk stood before Shara, eldritch try not to use 'eldritch' unless you are H. P. Lovecraft or writing a roleplaying sourcebook runes glowing red on its obsidian surface, pulsing with the rhythm of a great beast�s breaths. The chamber was silent, the sole illumination being the deep crimson of the stone pillar. I get that this is flowery and purple for a joke, but it doesn't work for me. Most of your work is from Shara's point of view, so it doesn't make sense that she'd wax poetic briefly then go back to modern sarcasm. The juxtaposition of weird technology with mundane attitudes is fine, but the execution doesn't really work.

Shara kicked it.

�Great, there goes everyone�s bonus,� the elf Again, I get that you're trying to establish this, but on my first read, I though maybe there was some other elf. said, running her hand through her hair. Not that she didn�t see this coming, though- the engine was a bit on the old side, after all. It was just that being on the arse-end of Hegemony space meant that engine replacements were going to be a bitch to find. On the one hand, these two sentences were more conversational, which fits with the tone you're going for, but you're stuffing them with equivocating language that weakens what you're saying. For instance, "She'd seen this coming, though--the engine was old." The more you qualify your descriptions, the less vivid they get. She walked back to the room�s entrance and reactivated the lights, Why did she have the lights off when she came in? Was it just to set up the beginning scene? before turning back to the engine. Far as she could tell, the engine was good for one, maybe two more jumps, then-

Something dripped in front of her. Dark brown droplets stained the floor, and Shara looked up, her eyes widening when she saw the creature above- a man-sized centipede stretching forth from the ceiling, This sentence should be split here. Everything after it is a weird awkward phrase. two pairs of grotesque, armlike claws located just behind an insectoid head that ended in wicked mandibles bordered on the outside by delicate manipulator tendrils. This is a good physical inventory, but I still don't have a very good idea of how he looks. If you're going for a weird-is-normal vibe, and if you're doing it from Shara's point of view, then don't dump all of the description at once. She sees him, and he's on the ceiling, so that's normal but WOW a bottle of WINE!!! _{(which happens to be in his lobster claws)}

But that was not what made Shara jump- it was what the beast held. �Is that...?� she asked, not wanting to believe it.

The centipede nodded, handing Shara the bottle it held. �A bottle of Blackbird, yes,� it said. �Been saving it for a special occasion.� Aw dude you did this same exact joke like three paragraphs ago! This is a slightly better execution of the joke, but it's irrelevant because we already had this joke happen.

�You�re an angel, Torch Dialogue Tip: People usually only say someone's name if they're a third party to the conversation, or if they're trying to get their attention or really, REALLY underscore what they're saying. Imagine your mother calling you by your full name. If your mother wouldn't call you by your full name in that situation, don't use it.,� Shara said, taking a swig Unless Shara has a Zaphod Beeblebrox thing going on she probably can't say something and drink at the same time. Also, when did the bottle get into her hands? Torch was on the ceiling and she was on the ground. Even if you're showing things that are sort of simultaneous (he crawls down, she takes the bottle, and takes a swig) the reader is going to understand things in the order you present them. as Torch crawled down from the ceiling beside her. �What? It�s true!� Not necessary, you can get the idea that he disagrees/is blushing (actually, I'm not sure which.) from the way she qualifies. she said when Torch�s carapace rippled blue. �The ugliest angel, let�s be fair, but an angel nonetheless.� Nonetheless is a big word for someone who's been fairly casual so far. My five-second rewrite would be something like "Okay, you're an ugly angel, but you're still an angel."

�Doubt it,� Torch replied. �If I were, I�d have brought you a new engine.�

�Hm, good point. What the hells oh I get it, because space, fantasy, elf, more than one hell are you doing aboard my ship then, you useless roach?� I think you're overshooting friendly banter a bit here. I'd say roach as an insult is clear enough, and adding 'useless' makes it seem more mean-spirited than it needs to be. This would be a good place to do some of that juxtaposition you were doing earlier, e.g., "So if you don't have an engine for me, what are you doing on my ship, you roach?" She held out the bottle, but Torch was eyeing the engine, so she took another sip.

�Mooching,� Torch said, crawling towards the engine. �Eating your hair while you sleep.�

�And anyone who actually means it when they call you �roach�?�This is awkward, because it doesn't mesh well with what she was talking about.

�I call it morale-building.� It took me two reads to get what he meant by this, and a third to get the idea that it's improving other peoples' morale.

�Certainly makes me feel better.� Okay, so you're trying to get across the idea that Torch doesn't mind when people insult him, and that Shara teases him about it. You need to make the conversation flow more naturally, though--as it is, it feels like five lines that don't quite match up together. Shara goes from talking about why he's on the ship to other people insulting him to joking about how she insults him. Torch goes from talking about his actions to what he calls other people's actions. Here's my five-second rewrite: "Mooching," Torch said, crawling towards the engine. "Eating your hair while you sleep." / "Again? Is it because I called you a roach?" / "From you, that doesn't mean anything. From others...well, they're building their morale." "Hey, it makes me feel better too." The hard part of writing a conversation like this is getting the topic to flow naturally based on what people are saying. In my rewrite, you can sort of see the lines of thought behind what they're saying. Shara reacts to 'eating your hair', and segues from that into her teasing. Torch moves from her teasing to other people's, but she brings it back to herself, because she's not interested in discussing how other people treat Torch at the moment. When you've got a conversation like this, you need to think about how these two characters are thinking and reacting to each other, and that'll help you make your conversations flow better. Shara took another swig, and sighed as she looked at the engine again. �You think it�d sell for anything?� May just be me, but I'd phrase this as "you think I could sell it?" Distancing herself from the doing the selling (it'd sell versus i could sell it) makes it sounds like someone else is going to sell it. Also, it flows better with the next line. It's okay to have similar phrases in conversations because people often build off what each other say.

�How much you want to sell it for?� So for instance, this would be building off of "You think I could sell it?", where Torch just reflects what she says and adds in the question 'for how much?'. Torch asked as he came back. If he didn't do anything important over by the engine why did he go there in the first place?

Shara shrugged. �Enough?� Enough for what? I don't know what she's referring to. Enough to buy a new engine?

�Then nope.� He took the drink out of Shara�s hands and had himself a short sip. �So... how bad are things?� he asked, handing the bottle back.

Shara sighed. �We�d be running on fumes and dreams for a while,� Is this with or without replacing the engine? And what's gone wrong that they're low on cash? she said, �but I�ve got enough saved up to at least pay the crew their salaries. No bonuses though, and if this What is 'this'? I only know that things are bad and this has been going on but I don't know what things or this actually are. goes on another six months, it�d be just you and me again.�

�And no lower,� Torch clicked. This time, his carapace grew even redder. �No lower,� he said, trying to reassure himself. You established that Torch speaks relatively casually, so this seems out of place, kind of formal (thinking of a friendship in a numerican sort of way). "At least there's the two of us," would seem a bit more natural, but there's other ways to phrase it. If you want to keep up the teasing, he could say something like "You couldn't get rid of me even if you went broke," but it's not a good idea to lay on the sarcasm with every line.

�I�ll drink to that,� Shara groaned, leaning her head back. �Gods I'd forgotten this was a spaceship with an elf, thanks., can you imagine how smug Father Is Shara kind of upper class? Are elves kind of upper class? 'My dad' is more natural unless she's grown up referring to him as 'father'. would be if I moved back in?�

�You can move back in with me,� Torch said. �My hive would love to have you.�

�Like that would stop Father,� Uhh, stop him from what? Shara said. �He�d set up a covered chair in front of the house every morning, and just smug Please don't do this at me as soon as I stepped out of your place.� She stood up. �Nothing for it- we�re shelling out for a new engine at Elphes,� she said. �Something dwarven, maybe.� "Nothing for it" sounds weird to me, but maybe it's from a different dialect? If you've never heard anyone else say it though, leave that out. If you want to keep the idea that she changes the subject abruptly back to the engine, you could just have her stand up and say "Anyway, we're buying a new engine at Elphes."

Torch let out a high-pitched chitter. �I thought you wanted to save money?�

�Doesn�t have to be top of the line,� Shara said. �As long as it lasts longer than this lump,� she said, looking up at the stone obelisk This aside is unnecessary because we already know it's the engine., �it�s fine by me.�

�Well, you�re the captain,� she heard Torch say as he came up from behind her.

�And the chief engineer,� Shara reminded him. �And the head negotiator,� she said, waggling her finger as they walked off. What does being the negotiator have to do with things, and what is she waggling her finger at? In fact, why is she waggling her finger?

�Yes, yes,� Torch said, placing two arms around the elf. �You�re indispensable. My duties twiddling the navigation controls are surely numbered.� TOO MUCH SARCASM. It just gets smarmy by this point.

�And don�t you forget it,� Shara said, placing her own arm around Torch. This is another section where I don't think the flow of the conversation works. It starts off with Shara saying they'll spend money if they have to (As long as it lasts longer than this lump), and Torch essentially agrees with her, and then I'm not sure what she's doing listing off the other roles she has, then Torch makes some joke and apparently he's the pilot, maybe? Also, the phrase is that one's 'days are numbered', not one's duties. Five-second rewrite: "As long as it lasts longer than this lump, I'm fine with paying." \ "Well, you're the captain." \ "And the engineer and the negotiator, and all three of us vote for a new engine." \ "I'm glad you haven't decided to be the pilot, too." \ "Don't think I wouldn't."

Your prose isn't too bad, and it's certainly better than some stuff I've seen in Thunderdome. Where you could use some work is in imagery, dialogue, and pacing your descriptions.

If you're trying to do the weird-but-it's-normal tone, that's done best through the eyes of the person to whom it's normal. This means you have to trust your readers a bit, sure, but it means you can do more interesting things, like having a character blithely notice that another character is on the ceiling, and oh, he's climbing down along the wall and he's got booze in his clawhand. That slow drip of information, gradually filling out with more odd details, is more interesting than knowing all at one that he's a centipede. Doing this would also probably help you to show more of your description, as you'd be showing it as it becomes relevant instead of telling it to the reader all at once.

When it comes to the dialogue, I can see how you're weak there. Part of learning to write dialogue is just learning from hearing--ideally, hearing other real people talk. But part of it is also dramatizing how real people talk, and I think the advice I gave you for how to structure multi-line conversations can help. Each sentence should make sense as a response to the previous one. Even if in your mind you're working toward something specific that they're saying, remember that each line needs to make sense in context.

# ? Mar 19, 2014 01:07

CommissarMega: Nov 18, 2008; THUNDERDOME LOSER

shooz posted:

The hook isn't working for me.
...
Then again, I guess it's fine as long as something interesting happens in the next chapter/we find out what's at stake.

Yeah, I tend to get spergy over setting the scene up- if there wasn't the 1000 word limit, I'd have posted the next section (which, sadly, is even MORE setup, though).

shooz posted:

The dialogue is boring. The characters sound the exact same, and use "funny" stock phrases, especially toward the end. The dialogue reminds me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which worked well enough on screen, but I'm not sure if it works here. I guess you're trying to show the two joking around with each other, having fun etc. But it's not funny when I read it.

Yeah, that was exactly what I was going for, and seriously, thank you for pointing out the problems. Would it be too much if I reposted a corrected version later?

shooz posted:

I realize that the wall of text might seem harsh. Your writing isn't bad, however; it's clear and to the point. Nor did I need to force myself to read through it. The things I criticised didn't jump at me, I had to think long and hard about why I didn't get into it. And I'm obviously not sure that I'm right about any of it. I still hope I was of some use.

Hey, no problem- this was some good stuff. Not like I can lock myself in the echo chamber of my head, after all.

Djeser posted:

If you're trying to do the weird-but-it's-normal tone, that's done best through the eyes of the person to whom it's normal.

YES, THANK YOU! This is exactly the overall feel I want to put across with the first chapter.

shooz posted:

When it comes to the dialogue, I can see how you're weak there. Part of learning to write dialogue is just learning from hearing--ideally, hearing other real people talk. But part of it is also dramatizing how real people talk, and I think the advice I gave you for how to structure multi-line conversations can help.

It does, thanks. Time for revisions, it seems.

# ? Mar 19, 2014 05:00

shooz: Oct 10, 2006; there's no life like no life

CommissarMega posted:

Would it be too much if I reposted a corrected version later?

I'm not in charge here, but I'd love to read a revised version.

And btw, the last quote in your post is by Djeser, not me.

# ? Mar 19, 2014 17:57

Martello: Apr 29, 2012; by XyloJW

Nobody's in charge here. Post revisions as much as you want.

# ? Mar 19, 2014 21:08

CommissarMega: Nov 18, 2008; THUNDERDOME LOSER

All right; it's a little over the word count though, won't happen again:

No Drive (Revision 1, Sci-Fantasy, 1148 words)

Shara grunted in frustration as the lightning died down and the room went dark again. In front of her, an obsidian obelisk glowed red, unchanged from how it was when Shara began channeling raw magic into the chamber. Her eyes passed across the web of red runes, weakly pulsing with arcane energies. She then ran her fingers across the surface, sparks of magic dancing on her fingertips. Finally, she stepped back, and kicked it.

�Stupid engine!� she hissed before throwing her arms up in frustration. �There goes everyone�s bonuses,� the elf said, running her hand through her short, copper-red hair as she turned the lights back on.

Not that she didn�t see this coming, of course, but being on the arse-end of Hegemony space meant that engine replacements were a bitch to find. Especially now, what with the big inner-galaxy megaguilds finally expanding into the frontier and buying up all the trade routes- and all the ship equipment too, greedy bastards. Now, she was left with a cargo hold almost as empty as her savings account.

Okay, okay, calm down. This isn�t the end of the world; the engine would be good for one, maybe two more jumps. Plenty of time to-

Something clicked above her. When Shara looked up, she saw a man-sized centipede stretching forth from the ceiling, segmented body coiling out from a vent at the top- and a bottle of steel-melting liquor in one of its four hands.

"Gods drat it, Torch," she said, grinning widely as she took the bottle. "Why aren't we married yet?"

"Because one of us has standards?" Torch quipped, his carapace flaring. �Enjoy the Blackbird,� he said, handing the bottle over. �Been saving it for a special occasion- a funeral, by the looks of it.�

�You�re an angel,� Shara said, taking a swig with one hand and bumping Torch�s fist the other as the quel-datha crawled down the wall beside her. �What? It�s true!� she said when his carapace rippled blue. �An ugly angel- no, the ugliest angel- let�s be fair, but still an angel,� she added, before peeling the bottlecap off with her teeth and spitting it out. �So, apart from corrupting the ship�s officers, what else are you doing aboard my ship, you big roach?�

�Mooching,� Torch said, crawling towards the engine, his eyes gleaming as they fixed on the engine. �Eating anyone who calls me �roach�,� he chirped. �It builds morale,� he chirped.

�That kind of thing certainly makes me feel better,� Shara said. She took a swig, and sighed as Troch started tapping the engine. �Not enough to get you a bonus, though.�

�Not even with the Blackbird? Things must really be bad then,� Torch said, scuttling around the pillar. �So what�s wrong with the engine, exactly?�

�The channeling�s shot, no way around it,� Shara replied, gesturing towards it with the half-empty Blackbird. �And before you ask, yes, I�m sure. The way we�re leaking magic, we could use the engine as a drat sieve. Tried shunting power from the rest of the ship, brute force some power draw, but it just wouldn�t take. It�s just too old to work anymore- that�s not something I can fix.�

�First time for eveything,� Torch said, peering closely at the engine. His compound eyes let him see a far wider spectrum of colour than most sentient races�, which was why Shara let him borrow her practical projects whenever he wanted to get high back at the academy.

�Thanks.� Shara walked over to him, her eyes fixed on the engine. �So, you think we can sell it? There�s got to be some weird antique collector out there.�

�Hm? Oh yes, I think. Maybe. How much would you want for it?� Torch asked, massaging his antennae to clear his head.

Shara shrugged. �Een...ough? Honestly, as long as we have the cash to pick up some cargo at Elphes, I�m considering that a win.�

Torch looked back at the engine, clicking his mandibles thoughtfully. �You want good news or bad news?�

�I�m feeling lucky- hit me with the good news,� Shara said, her hands on her hips.

A whistling sound filled the air as Torch took a deep breath, the spiracles at his side expanding. �Good news is, you can keep the rest of the bottle.� Once Shara�s exasperated scream was done, he added. �That bad, hnh?�

Shara nodded, her face in her hand. �You have no idea. We�re running on fumes and dreams here,� she said. �Best thing I can think of is borrow some money to keep us afloat for a bit,� she added, when she heard Torch hiss. �Don�t flare those tentacles at me, mister- I told you it�s the best idea I have. Anyway, even that�d only keep us afloat a month or two. Unless we score something big...� she trailed off. �We�ll lose the ship,� she finished quietly.

�We won�t,� Torch said, patting her on the shoulder. �Once we reach Elphes, we�ll just secure some contracts, ask for advance payment, buy a new engine, make a few trades- we�ll be rolling in cash before you know it.�

�You make it sound so easy,� Shara sighed, leaning her head back. �Gods,� she said, shaking her head. �Can you imagine how insufferable Father would be if I moved back in?�

�You can move back in with me and mine,� Torch said, slinking in front of Shara. �My hive would love to have you back. True, the location needs a little work, always has- but I�m sure things�ll work out.�

�Like that would stop Father,� Shara said, stepping over him. �He�d set up a covered chair in front of the house every morning and irradiate me in smug satisfaction as soon as I stepped out of your place.�

�There you go!� Torch chittered, patting Shara on her arms. �Motivation!�

�Hah! You said it!� she said, then took a deep breath. �All right, we�re shelling out for a new engine at Elphes,� she said after a short pause, cracking her knuckles. �Something dwarven, maybe.�

Torch let out a short, high-pitched screech. �You�re setting the bar that high? I thought you wanted to save money.�

�We�ll need something reliable and long-lasting. I�m not talking about buying some Ranulf Stoneworks Mark Ridiculous top shelf deal,� Shara said. �As long as it lasts longer than this lump, it�s fine by me.�

�You�re setting the bar that low? I thought you wanted a good engine.� Torch�s scales twitched for a moment under Shara�s withering stare, before he leaned forward and nudged her forehead with his antennae. �Look, don�t worry about it. poo poo happens, you know? It�s how you clean it up that matters.�

�Thanks,� Shara said, placing her arm around Torch�s waist. �You know, that sounded actually intelligent,� she added. �Where did that come from?�

�Well, before I set off to see you, I had two bottles of Blackbird,� he said, scales flaring in laughter.

EDIT: Changed a little as per JuniperCake's suggestion.

CommissarMega fucked around with this message at 10:11 on Mar 20, 2014

# ? Mar 20, 2014 08:23

JuniperCake: Jan 26, 2013

CommissarMega posted:

All right; it's a little over the word count though, won't happen again:

No Drive (Revision 1, Sci-Fantasy, 1180 words)

Something clicked above her. When Shara looked up, she saw a man-sized centipede stretching forth from the ceiling, segmented body coiling out from a vent at the top. An insectoid head ended in wicked mandibles, bordered on the outside by delicate manipulator tendrils, while its two antennae tasted the air. It focused its compound eyes on her, two pairs of clawed arms behind its back. Her green eyes made contact with the centipede�s prismatic gaze.

I just wanted to comment about one thing real quick because I noticed this issue in your first draft as well. If you want to establish a sense of camaraderie between the two of them and portray Torch's appearance as not a big deal to Shara who is presumably your viewpoint character, don't start with a lengthy description of him with an aim of making him seem alien and menacing to the viewer. Also it's kinda cold to have Shara think of him as "something clicking above her" when she clearly behaves as if he is a someone. It's good to keep your view point character's expectations in mind when it comes to describing stuff. Describing him first as a monster, but then saying, oh but hes a friend is also a bit too coy which can turn some people off. It's false suspense that gets deflated immediately, and it makes one wonder whats the point of it.

Trust your reader, just have the dude descend, maybe use like one tiny description to imply hes moving in a way that's not human or something like that, then let the rest of the details follow. People will be able to follow the exchange and figure stuff out from there. Leaving some stuff to the imagination and downplaying the bizarre elements, especially in the eyes of Shara, will do much more to make things seem mundane in respect to the setting. People don't tend to obssess over mundane details that they see every day and usually take forgranted, well unless they have OCD I suppose.

Also as far as description goes in general, you'd be surprised with how little you can get away with. If you don't say something specific, people's minds will fill it out for you. A little bit of the right description can evoke a far more vivid and interesting picture than 3-4 detailed sentences. Sometimes that much description is appropriate, however I don't think this situation is one of them.

JuniperCake fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Mar 20, 2014

# ? Mar 20, 2014 09:46

CommissarMega: Nov 18, 2008; THUNDERDOME LOSER

JuniperCake posted:

I just wanted to comment about one thing real quick because I noticed this issue in your first draft as well. If you want to establish a sense of camaraderie between the two of them and portray Torch's appearance as not a big deal to Shara who is presumably your viewpoint character, don't start with a lengthy description of him with an aim of making him seem alien and menacing to the viewer. Also it's kinda cold to have Shara think of him as "something clicking above her" when she clearly sees him as a someone. Keep your view point character's expectations in mind when it comes to describing stuff. Describing him first as a monster, but then saying, oh but hes a friend is also a bit too coy which can turn some people off. It's false suspense that gets deflated immediately, and it makes one wonder whats the point of it.

You know, now that you mention this, it seems to blindingly goddamn obvious :negative:

Would this work?

quote:

Something clicked above her. When Shara looked up, she saw a man-sized centipede stretching forth from the ceiling, segmented body coiling out from a vent at the top- and a bottle of steel-melting liquor in one of its four hands.

"Gods drat it, Torch," she said, grinning widely as she took the bottle. "Why aren't we married yet?"

"Because one of us has standards," Torch quipped, his carapace flaring.

EDIT: Of course I'd have to redo the next few lines, but that should go without saying.

CommissarMega fucked around with this message at 10:09 on Mar 20, 2014

# ? Mar 20, 2014 09:52

JuniperCake: Jan 26, 2013

CommissarMega posted:

You know, now that you mention this, it seems to blindingly goddamn obvious Would this work?

Yeah it looks straight to the point to me. I do think it works much better.

# ? Mar 20, 2014 09:57

Promethium: Dec 31, 2009; Dinosaur Gum

This is probably a small complaint, but stylistically, there's a construction you're using repeatedly to the point where it's distracting. It is:

"<dialogue>", <character> <said/bookism>, <verb>-ing <clause>.

There's nothing wrong with it, but don't do it for every line.

# ? Mar 20, 2014 19:15

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# ? May 28, 2024 19:13

CommissarMega: Nov 18, 2008; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Promethium posted:

This is probably a small complaint, but stylistically, there's a construction you're using repeatedly to the point where it's distracting. It is:

"<dialogue>", <character> <said/bookism>, <verb>-ing <clause>.

There's nothing wrong with it, but don't do it for every line.

And THIS might be a little embarrassing, at least for me, because I can't quite seem to get my head around how else I should do it :downs:

Have any examples I can look at, or suggestions on how to keep it down?

# ? Mar 25, 2014 09:00

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > The Farm 2013. Flash Fiction and Snippets Critique Hub (<1000 Words)

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