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Mel Mudkiper posted:Yes, a capitalist society produces capitalist writers who produce capitalist fiction. Thats my point. The idea that idea that one doesn't need to concern oneself with craft because the book is meant to be a product to non-discerning audience is toxic and restrictive. It's impossible to escape the control of a system, but at least a lot of the journals I read are self-funded, not-for-profits, and at most have some state arts body funding. Even then the editorial line often falls along stories that conform to their thought, and even confirm it. This might only be confirmation for your point, and you might see it as further validation, but small journals that in theory answer to no-one aren't coming up with anything truly challenging. Some times it's adjacent to challenge, which is probably the best I can hope for from a small magazine and myself, but a lot of what I've read recently falls into the comfortable area of reading.
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Apr 18, 2018 16:47
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Sham bam bamina! posted:The way it is right now - and I know that you aren't really thinking this way - is actually more like an idea guy getting some vague thoughts about a totally awesome game into his head and then asking around developer forums for a team of programmers who can help him out by doing The Work. AKA every goon project ever Mrenda posted:It's impossible to escape the control of a system, but at least a lot of the journals I read are self-funded, not-for-profits, and at most have some state arts body funding. Even then the editorial line often falls along stories that conform to their thought, and even confirm it. This might only be confirmation for your point, and you might see it as further validation, but small journals that in theory answer to no-one aren't coming up with anything truly challenging. Some times it's adjacent to challenge, which is probably the best I can hope for from a small magazine and myself, but a lot of what I've read recently falls into the comfortable area of reading. read babyfucker
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Apr 18, 2018 16:48
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Mel Mudkiper posted:You are bothered by the fact that a book ostensibly about a hyper-developed form of the internet would have the same problems as the internet? When it came up in the original Let's Read thread, just about everyone who commented on it said that they were uncomfortable with the rewrite having really dark poo poo like that and found it really goony that as soon as a rewrite started being talked about somebody tried to suggest a bunch of violence and rape. Yes, it's realistic. That doesn't mean that people wanted the book to shift gears to a darker and edgier tone like we're writing a new season of American Horror Story. Maybe some small hints in the background, but there was a general discomfort with having it be the focus of anything. Sham bam bamina! posted:I understand the mindset of wanting to show up a best-selling book with a better version. I also understand wanting to get the whole goon gang to come in with everything for a HUGE party. What I don't understand is how you expect the first to have anything to do with the second. The way it is right now - and I know that you aren't really thinking this way - is actually more like an idea guy getting some vague thoughts about a totally awesome game into his head and then asking around developer forums for a team of programmers who can help him out by doing The Work. I'm honestly fine with writing the whole thing myself if that's what it ends up being. But a lot of people came up with a lot of contributions during the initial discussion in the Let's Read thread, and there was serious interest in a collaborative effort of some. All of the issues with allowing unbridled contribution and having people write chapters by themselves were addressed back then. If there's still interest among people in contributing prose, I'd like to keep up with the original plan. I'll still write it myself if nobody else wants to, since I said I was going to do this and I don't plan on giving up on the first step. feedmyleg posted:But none of those are problems. While I understand that's the kind of project you'd prefer, I'm going to just say it outright: that's not going to happen with this one. The entire purpose of the project from the very first discussions of it was to take a story that frustratingly dropped the ball over and over and showcase how it could have been done better. That's something born of weeks of chapter updates being followed up with comments on how people would have liked a scene or character to be depicted instead, or frustration at something that could have been cool being completely fumbled and made uninteresting and dull. From the beginning, the goal was to have a comprehensible novel at the end of it. That's not going to change. If you really find your experiment something that should be done, make the thread! Maybe have two competing rewrites going on at once: one that tries to seem like an actual complete product that you would find on a shelf, and one that gives total creative freedom to contributors. Hell, I'd probably contribute to that thread if it got made in addition to this one. I'm going to spend some more time tweaking Chapter 1, then I'll post it. Not as a final draft before moving on to Chapter 2, so you'll get to critique it and suggest alternatives. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Apr 18, 2018 |
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Apr 18, 2018 17:50
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chitoryu12 posted:I'm honestly fine with writing the whole thing myself if that's what it ends up being. But a lot of people came up with a lot of contributions during the initial discussion in the Let's Read thread, and there was serious interest in a collaborative effort of some. All of the issues with allowing unbridled contribution and having people write chapters by themselves were addressed back then. If there's still interest among people in contributing prose, I'd like to keep up with the original plan. I'll still write it myself if nobody else wants to, since I said I was going to do this and I don't plan on giving up on the first step. I tried to warn you about it back in that thread, but goons are notoriously "idea" guys. You will get 20 people what something should or could be like but 0 people willing to actually do it.
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Apr 18, 2018 18:00
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I'm just going to bow out with contributing my thoughts, then, because to me those aren't the words of someone who is willing to collaborate or listen to outside ideas. You want to do it your way on your terms, which is fine, it's your project. But don't try to position it as some sort of group collaboration.
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Apr 18, 2018 18:19
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feedmyleg posted:I'm just going to bow out with contributing my thoughts, then, because to me those aren't the words of someone who is willing to collaborate or listen to outside ideas. You want to do it your way on your terms, which is fine, it's your project. But don't try to position it as some sort of group collaboration. You are still welcome to contribute to the ONANSIS project. We are open to anything... and we mean anything
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Apr 18, 2018 18:22
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feedmyleg posted:I'm just going to bow out with contributing my thoughts, then, because to me those aren't the words of someone who is willing to collaborate or listen to outside ideas. You want to do it your way on your terms, which is fine, it's your project. But don't try to position it as some sort of group collaboration. I established the parameters of the thread, how contributions would be handled, and what its final purpose was from the very beginning. You're welcome to participate just like anyone else, but any contribution that's "This entire thread is wrong, do something else" doesn't benefit anything.
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Apr 18, 2018 18:24
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Here's the current draft of the first chapter. It's been through one round of editing, adding sentences and removing words, but I don't have third party feedback yet.quote:I don’t remember what color the sky was when Halliday died.
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Apr 18, 2018 19:47
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Not many thoughts and not too much time at the moment, but rather than have you post your hard work to a reply of deafening silence and trolls, let me just say that I liked it a lot.
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Apr 18, 2018 20:13
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Dave Syndrome posted:Not many thoughts and not too much time at the moment, but rather than have you post your hard work to a reply of deafening silence and trolls, let me just say that I liked it a lot. Thanks. I know I'm not a professional, so as long as I can make something better than the original I can say that I've achieved some kind of success at this! I'd really like feedback on some of the more emotional moments for Wade and ideas for more colorful descriptions for how he experiences things, since that's probably the part of my writing that I struggle the most with.
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Apr 18, 2018 20:16
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Well you haven’t really succeeded in your primary objective, because your rewrite of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One is not any better written. Why make the opening line a reference to the opening line of a bad novel? Referencing the only line people remember from the novel even makes it seem like a superficial reading – so is it supposed to characterize the protagonist as ill-read? quote:I didn’t see it much, even when looking out the laundry room window. The other stack across the way filled up most of my view. When I actually left my unit, I kept my head to the ground and on a swivel for anyone coming out of an alley (which was often, since alleys were the only thing separating stacks). And when I was inside, I had more pressing things to pay attention to. Here your dystopic imagery is vague and inexpressive. Why not start with describing one of the most important images in the books, which is “the stacks”? quote:The date’s easy to find, though, if you Google it. December 2nd, 2090. According to weather.com, Oklahoma City was cloudy that day with a high of 39 degrees Fahrenheit and a low of 27 degrees. At the moment his heart made its final beat, the wind was 6 miles per hour and blowing northwest. Brain cells begin to die after 4 to 6 minutes without blood flow, so I suppose the humidity was around 24% when James Halliday ceased to exist. Give or take. This is superfluous, and using Wade’s inability to recall the colour of the sky to wring out some Post-Information Age poignancy only merits an eyeroll. “Technology can tell us anything, but can it REALLY??!?” quote:What I remember is that I was 14 years old when the school day was interrupted by a window that appeared on everybody’s visor. I think it might have been my US History (Basic) class, but a lot of these OASIS teachers look interchangeable so my memory is a bit fuzzy then. I remember that even he stopped mid-sentence, which is how I know that “everybody” meant everybody. Why the emphasis on everybody when this “everybody” is already so indistinct and irrelevant? Why not describe the scene first? The most important part here is the satirical image of a virtual classroom, but you stop short of saying anything interesting about it. quote:The window was black at first, with the title bar along the top simply reading “Anorak’s Invitation”. It piqued my interest; just about every announcement from the CEO came from Anorak, but usually in the form of emails. Stopping everything to force people to listen? Now that was something. quote:Instead of Wade just dropping all the details about OASIS on the very first page, I think it flows a bit better to integrate chunks of knowledge for the reader into the narrative. I It’s a rather bad idea. You’re trying to accomplish genre “world-building,” but the reader actually needs to understand the imagery at work. Why not first describe what the OASIS virtual reality experience so that the reader can understand what’s happening? quote:The first sound we all heard in our headphones was a distorted guitar, just long enough to get us interested. And then it seemed like every instrument possible struck at once. “All dressed up and nowhere to go….” Again, who is ”us”? We have no idea what the classroom is like. Also, why retain the asinine pop culture references? In general your prose is occasionally functional. The basic problem with your fanfiction is that you’re just rewriting passages to be blander rather than addressing any formal problems with the text. Why keep the first-person narration, for example? It’s not as if the protagonist’s internal narration is ever very interesting. It would be far better to see him from the outside, as more of a type.
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Apr 18, 2018 20:33
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Well you haven’t really succeeded in your primary objective, because your rewrite of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One is not any better written. I'm referencing one of the most famous early cyberpunk novels in a quasi-cyberpunk book that's structured around 80s references. This isn't hard. quote:Here your dystopic imagery is vague and inexpressive. Why not start with describing one of the most important images in the books, which is “the stacks”? Because more detail about Wade's daily life in the stacks is coming in the next chapter. This is following the same rough structure where it opens with a quasi-flashback to 5 years ago to the Hunt beginning, with the second chapter returning to the main story of 2095 after the basics of the Hunt have been established. quote:This is superfluous, and using Wade’s inability to recall the colour of the sky to wring out some Post-Information Age poignancy only merits an eyeroll. “Technology can tell us anything, but can it REALLY??!?” Not only is that not how the text is meant to be read, I preemptively answered the question about that paragraph when I posted the sample: it's showing the irrelevancy of the details of Halliday's death to Wade at the time by putting them on the same dramatic level as the weather that day. quote:Why the emphasis on everybody when this “everybody” is already so indistinct and irrelevant? Why not describe the scene first? The most important part here is the satirical image of a virtual classroom, but you stop short of saying anything interesting about it. The virtual classroom isn't meant to be a satirical image. quote:It’s a rather bad idea. You’re trying to accomplish genre “world-building,” but the reader actually needs to understand the imagery at work. Why not first describe what the OASIS virtual reality experience so that the reader can understand what’s happening? One of the worst parts of the original is that it assumes the readers are idiots who need to have every single detail about OASIS, the current state of the world, and a full biography of Wade Watts and James Halliday explained in multiple chapter-long info dumps occasionally interrupted by a few sentences of story. quote:Again, who is ”us”? We have no idea what the classroom is like. The upcoming chapters deal with that in more detail. quote:Also, why retain the asinine pop culture references? That's literally the lyrics of the song, which is playing in-universe. It's not a reference, it's happening. After your last "contributions" to the thread, your reading of the text is so bad that I'm pretty sure it's intentional.
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Apr 18, 2018 20:53
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chitoryu12 posted:I'm referencing one of the most famous early cyberpunk novels in a quasi-cyberpunk book that's structured around 80s references. This isn't hard. It's advisable to begin the story with something good and interesting instead of references to cyberpunk and "world-building". chitoryu12 posted:Not only is that not how the text is meant to be read It doesn't matter how the text is "meant" to be read. If these details are irrelevant to the character, they would not be recounting them at all, so there's obvious contradiction. A virtual classroom being interrupted by the latest social media buzz is an extremely satirical image. If you manage to write out a scene like that without realizing you're writing satire, there's probably something wrong. chitoryu12 posted:One of the worst parts of the original is that it assumes the readers are idiots who need to have every single detail about OASIS, the current state of the world, and a full biography of Wade Watts and James Halliday explained in multiple chapter-long info dumps occasionally interrupted by a few sentences of story. Why not simply rewrite those "infodumps" to be more interesting? Long-winded explanations are not some kind of problem. Quoting something is still referencing it.
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Apr 18, 2018 21:16
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I gotta admit I am not feeling that first line. Here's a pitch. Start the novel in OASIS. Its a novel about VR, why start it in the real world? Hell, I would go so far as to start it in medias res. You can also make the first line reference to Neuromancer more than a reference and actually make it play the same role as it did in the source text. "The sky over the Tomb was the color of neon"
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Apr 18, 2018 21:18
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Dunno. I thought chapter 1 2.0 worked rather well, all things given.
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Apr 18, 2018 21:21
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I gotta admit I am not feeling that first line. I'd say combine both versions. "I don't remember what color the sky was the day James Halliday died. Hell, I don't even think I saw the sky that day. The sky over the Tomb, however, was the color of neon, and never the same shade twice."
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Apr 18, 2018 21:24
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Why would it be important that the protagonist doesn't remember what colour the sky was? If the point is that he didn't care, why would he even bring it up?
BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Apr 18, 2018 |
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Apr 18, 2018 21:26
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Why would it be important that the protagonist doesn't remember what colour the sky was? Yeah, its something no one would ever think about. The only way saying "I dont remember the color of the sky" is if your protagonist was explicitly referencing Neuromancer in his own mind. And in that case, play it up a little. Also, as much as I am loathe to praise Cline, your version is missing a certain level of enthusiasm the original had. Your protagonist feels alienated from the world he inhabits.
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Apr 18, 2018 21:31
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nine-gear crow posted:I'd say combine both versions. The problem with this is the implication that the day Halliday died and the day Wade found the Tomb are the same day. I kinda like the idea of an in-medias-res opening and don't think that would necessarily mean scrapping the first chapter as written, since we'd still need to establish Anorak's Invitation. You'd just have to make it Chapter 2.
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Apr 18, 2018 21:31
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I gotta admit I am not feeling that first line. In a way, it does start in VR. Apart from the bit about the stacks and the laundry room at the very beginning, the whole scene takes place in a virtual classroom. The reason I'm not plainly stating "I'm in OASIS, a virtual reality simulator. Here is some weird virtual reality stuff that's only possible because I'm in a video game" is that I want it to really be from Wade's perspective as a person who lives in this world, writing for people in this world. For him, being in OASIS is as benign and common as being in a real classroom. Being in VR is very matter-of-fact from his perspective, like of course the mere mention of OASIS and opening browser windows would give enough context for someone else to understand that he's in a virtual classroom. Other aspects include things like the mentioning of the censorship plugin in the classroom, without going into detail describing how virtual classrooms censor bad words and flash a warning on your display if you say them. What would be a good way to write in media res? Assuming that we're pretending to be writing this for a fictional audience who's never read the original, stumbling upon The Tomb of Horrors or another challenge completely blind from Wade's perspective would allow for a more authentic sense of discovery, along with recognition by a reader who gets the references before Wade does and gets a sense of dramatic irony by watching him blunder into traps that the reader sees coming. Maybe do up a quick sample chapter of how you'd write it so we can see the difference? Mel Mudkiper posted:Yeah, its something no one would ever think about. While it's a reference to Neuromancer (in a way that's more subtle than how Cline did his, which were to directly state exactly which references were from which fiction), it also serves as the first step in showing Wade's isolation. Feeling alienated is kinda the goal I'm going for. With the character Wade has in this version, he's an outsider to a greater degree than the original (where he's supposed to be friendless but still has snappy comebacks for the school bullies and instantly takes to becoming a celebrity). He has no friends in real life, a lovely home life, and no online friends except for Aech (who's a hardcore egg hunter that Wade still has trouble understanding). His social anxiety keeps him from interacting with pretty much anyone except for brief moments when necessary, leading to a sense of isolation and alienation from the rest of the world until the High Five give him a true bonding experience.
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Apr 18, 2018 21:40
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Having an ordinary person's ability to recall things does not seem particularly alienated.
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Apr 18, 2018 21:42
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Maybe trying to build a book out of obligatory references to pop culture was never the best idea in the first place, no matter how badly Cline specifically did it.
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Apr 18, 2018 21:43
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chitoryu12 posted:While it's a reference to Neuromancer (in a way that's more subtle than how Cline did his, which were to directly state exactly which references were from which fiction), it also serves as the first step in showing Wade's isolation. Feeling alienated is kinda the goal I'm going for. Well yeah but that just means you have a novel that isnt really any better but is certainly less fun. What improves a book about a dude having a vr 80s adventure if he is sullen and morose the whole time?
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Apr 18, 2018 21:44
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Why would it be important that the protagonist doesn't remember what colour the sky was? If the point is that he didn't care, why would he even bring it up? Post your opening chapter.
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Apr 18, 2018 21:49
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Well yeah but that just means you have a novel that isnt really any better but is certainly less fun. What improves a book about a dude having a vr 80s adventure if he is sullen and morose the whole time? It becomes Don Quixote kinda
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Apr 18, 2018 21:49
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nine-gear crow posted:Post your opening chapter. Botl and I are co-authors of the ONANSIS project.
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Apr 18, 2018 22:01
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Botl and I are co-authors of the ONANSIS project. Please don't co-ordinate with your alt so openly. It's unbecoming.
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Apr 18, 2018 22:04
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Well yeah but that just means you have a novel that isnt really any better but is certainly less fun. What improves a book about a dude having a vr 80s adventure if he is sullen and morose the whole time? Well, one of the things I mentioned is that I'm also looking for feedback on ways to make some of the descriptions more colorful. The part where he sees the party in Halliday's personal music video and listens to Oingo Boingo for the first time shows him enjoying it, in addition to being astounded by the bizarre 1980s fashion and hairstyles. I want him to actually see meaning in certain parts of the 80s revival and enjoy it in ways that his modern pop culture consumption never accomplished while also having some kind of discerning taste. But I've always struggled with making my prose more purple than it is, which is why I really want suggestions for how to improve those moments and make their impact more vibrant in the text. In the plot outline on the first page, I bring up two major moments where Wade and Aech come to a conflict over their differing consumption of media. Aech has the same personality she did in the book, but Wade doesn't. She showcases unabashed enthusiasm for everything Halliday did and loses her filter for what's good and bad, unironically accepting nostalgia for something she never experienced when it was new. Wade takes each piece of media on its own merits, liking some and disliking others, and eventually comes to (virtual) blows with Aech at a pivotal moment when he accuses her of being just as obsessive about the subject as Halliday to the extent of losing any uniqueness about herself, while Aech in turn points out that he was fine following Halliday's footsteps to get rich like everyone else hunting the Egg. Don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like your criticism is based on judging the entire novel on the beginning of the book before any character development and assuming that nothing will change. Read the outline and character summaries again. The whole point is that he gradually comes out of his shell, finds romance (accidentally loving it up but managing to figure his poo poo out and recover by the end), finds an appreciation for the outside world by actually leaving his apartment of his own accord to try and conquer his social anxiety, and recognizes how his personal demons and flaws match Halliday despite his criticism of the dead man and works to conquer them to avoid becoming the same figure upon winning control of OASIS.
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Apr 18, 2018 22:05
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The picture faded in. It looked like some kind of gymnasium, packed wall to wall with young men and women violently loving each other. It was grainy and blurry, like an old snuff film, not like OASIS hyper-porno graphics. And the beauty of it all! Massive belts were the only accoutrement for many, revealing beneath them massive bushes of styled pubic hair. There were cock-rings that could contain Priapus, there were thick black plastic gimpsuits. And up on the stage was a band of eight burly men in a train, fronted by a redheaded man with an impish grin, a white wife beater, and nothing else. Even in the blurry footage, you could see the sweat and cum of the crowd evaporate into mist.Mel Mudkiper posted:Botl and I are co-authors of the ONANSIS project. I'm more of a filth ideas man.
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Apr 18, 2018 22:06
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Ras Het posted:It becomes Don Quixote kinda Pierre Menard's Ready Player One
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Apr 18, 2018 22:09
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chitoryu12 posted:With the character Wade has in this version, he's an outsider to a greater degree than the original (where he's supposed to be friendless but still has snappy comebacks for the school bullies and instantly takes to becoming a celebrity). He has no friends in real life, a lovely home life, and no online friends except for Aech (who's a hardcore egg hunter that Wade still has trouble understanding). His social anxiety keeps him from interacting with pretty much anyone except for brief moments when necessary, leading to a sense of isolation and alienation from the rest of the world until the High Five give him a true bonding experience. This is more interesting than what you have here. If you're setting up a grand quest, give me a reason why I want the character to succeed on the quest. From the straight off there's no reason for me to care. You haven't grounded the story in anything beyond perfunctory descriptions of somewhere I have no real feeling or understanding of. There's a building, an alleyway, stacks, and I know nothing more. Give them a mood, give them feel. If the protagonist is in a desperate situation try showing that somehow. What you started off with had all the charm of reading a cereal box. And as I've grown up I don't need to read the cereal box while eating cereal (I eat porridge anyway.) I didn't get that they were in VR classrooms. I thought he was in an actual classroom that was heavily reliant on a HUD. The part about the important dude's death message interrupting was described with all the bland ability of someone who sneers at people leaving Marvel films when the credits begin before retelling the whole film to his friends. "And then the camera swooped in like this..." The telling wasn't a felt experience. It was someone reminiscing about an average meal they had on a holiday just to reassure their friend they had a good time in the sun. You were describing a scene and the filming of something without ever capturing the sense of the film or its importance. Sometimes a "camera-like" approach can work in fiction, but it needs the enthusiasm of recreating a visuality. Another problem was that you had absolutely zero interiority. Throughout all this it's a retelling of the past, but there's no (or very little) call to what was thought at the time, or felt. There's no real element of the suddenness of this, the shock, the portentous nature. Was this a worldwide calamity that's just changed a young man's life? I don't know, because I can't see any evidence from this young man's mind or emotion. If the point of this was to get someone excited about going on a magic quest, then I guess it achieved that. You've pretty much just said, "There shall be an adventure." It's just an adventure that I want no part of. "Clicking the journal for the first time, I was overwhelmed. Not merely by the possibility of wealth, but by the journal itself. Anorak’s Almanac opened with an entry from June 15th, 1979. The 7-year-old Halliday briefly mentioned how his mother encouraged him to start keeping a journal to keep all his thoughts in one place because of how many he has, and then immediately began rambling off the page about playing Space Invaders until my eyes glazed over." This is funny. I guess it is I, the reader of these rambling thoughts, who has been tricked.
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Apr 18, 2018 22:11
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chitoryu12 posted:Don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like your criticism is based on judging the entire novel on the beginning of the book before any character development and assuming that nothing will change. Read the outline and character summaries again. The whole point is that he gradually comes out of his shell, finds romance (accidentally loving it up but managing to figure his poo poo out and recover by the end), finds an appreciation for the outside world by actually leaving his apartment of his own accord to try and conquer his social anxiety, and recognizes how his personal demons and flaws match Halliday despite his criticism of the dead man and works to conquer them to avoid becoming the same figure upon winning control of OASIS. I am reading it as a reader. Anyone who reads this is not going to have pre existing knowledge of your intentions and story outline. As it stands, nothing catches me as a reader from this introduction, I dont feel a real hook.
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Apr 18, 2018 22:11
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nine-gear crow posted:Please don't co-ordinate with your alt so openly. It's unbecoming. What are you even mod of anyways, I only see you in threads after BotL posts
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Apr 18, 2018 22:17
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Can you give some examples of openings that would personally hook you into this story? Or how you'd rewrite some of the things I have in there?
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Apr 18, 2018 22:17
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chitoryu12 posted:Can you give some examples of openings that would personally hook you into this story? Or how you'd rewrite some of the things I have in there? Flesh out the bits you've only given a small bit of attention to. Cut down on the setting up of "the quest." Add interiority.
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Apr 18, 2018 22:20
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chitoryu12 posted:Can you give some examples of openings that would personally hook you into this story? Or how you'd rewrite some of the things I have in there? Disclaimer: I haven't read the original so I'm only looking at it pragmatically - do with that what you will, it might be a useful perspective. I wrote some stuff about the opening line as well but some of it was posted by others in the meantime, so I'll just make a suggestion. You can make him pondering the colour of the sky believable by making it an actual fixation, i.e. instead of not remembering, make it so that he does. Have him elaborate on how he goes out of his way to see the sky on occasion, despite how difficult that apparently is. It lets you keep the opening statement because there's an actual reason for the protagonist to make it and it helps with the alienation, for both the reader and the protagonist. As it stands, there is no reason for the colour of the sky to feature so significantly in the opening to your story if it isn't something about which he is shown to care. That makes it so that any reader cognizant of the reference (which will be many, because it isn't very obscure) will sigh at it because it appears to only be there for the sake of being a reference. That's exactly the kind of reference that backfires; people like to feel smart for spotting an obscure reference and one that's both forced in and on the nose is only going to make them feel smarter than you. I don't know if remembering the colour could even work in the rest of the narrative (you'd have to shuffle some things around with the date etc.) but, as a new and neutral reader, it kind of doesn't as it stands either. Lex Neville fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Apr 18, 2018 |
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Apr 18, 2018 22:23
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chitoryu12 posted:Can you give some examples of openings that would personally hook you into this story? Or how you'd rewrite some of the things I have in there? As I said, open in medias res. Create a universe that is slowly revealed, instead of just tossing out the hook of the world immediately. Imagine your reader hasn't even read the back cover. They are starting from perfect zero in your world. Guide them into the setting, use the character to slowly open them up to the scope and vision of the world of the OASIS. Think about the line you are referencing. "The sky above the skyport..." line is really good because it does exactly this. Your reader is at a zero point, they are given two pieces of information. 1. It is the future 2. Technology is a form of aesthetic The rest of the opening chapter continues to guide the reader into the ideas of the world gradually. Imagine if Neuromancer opened with "The sky was blue like a tv. Anyways I am a hacker in this thing called cyberspace with is a big digital world. I enter it and steal information for crime lords. I do it with a chip in my brain" No one would keep reading. As for writing examples myself? I am not gonna do that. You already said you are going to have final say on what goes into the "book", and I am not gonna waste my time writing stuff that is just gonna be thrown out at your whim. You posted in the creative writing subforum looking for feedback. I am giving you feedback. Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Apr 18, 2018 |
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Apr 18, 2018 22:25
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Mrenda posted:Flesh out the bits you've only given a small bit of attention to. Cut down on the setting up of "the quest." Add interiority. This criticism doesn't tell me a whole lot that "Write better" doesn't say. Like the interiority, for example. When I look back at my own writing, I see it just fine! The tightening in his chest and nearly falling out of his chair when he hears the stakes of the game, the internal comment about the video seeming self-serving, unconsciously nodding along to the beat as he finds that he actually enjoys the old music. I can edit this a whole lot better if I actually have some kind of reference point beyond my own work. Do you have any excerpts of text from another work that writes this kind of scene in a better way? Do you want to write something up yourself that shows how you'd prefer it? If the only thing that I'm getting is "Flesh out some more things" without saying what your criteria is for being fleshed out, that's not really giving me much to go on and isn't helping with this be a real collaborative effort. Mrenda posted:I didn't get that they were in VR classrooms. I thought he was in an actual classroom that was heavily reliant on a HUD. This is the kind of criticism that I can definitely do something with.
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Apr 18, 2018 22:29
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chitoryu12 posted:This criticism doesn't tell me a whole lot that "Write better" doesn't say. Like the interiority, for example. When I look back at my own writing, I see it just fine! The tightening in his chest and nearly falling out of his chair when he hears the stakes of the game, the internal comment about the video seeming self-serving, unconsciously nodding along to the beat as he finds that he actually enjoys the old music. People are writing fairly decent sized posts explaining to you the many issues we have with your writing. If you want someone to go through each line, or pick out individual phrases that need improvement you're asking for a lot. Read your own work with some level of critical approach. A lot of us are finding the same issues with it and you're arguing how we're wrong and demanding specific examples. I've said it, Lex hinted at it, and Mel has said it. There's no detail to your piece, there's no feeling, there's very little thought. Having him say, "It piqued my interest..." is just a long line of sentences where you're flinging out information with no mind to how the piece can be evocative. If you want your story to simply spool out world details and plot pints with no mind in how that's done, that's fine, but you're not winning anyone over arguing you've done something else.
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Apr 18, 2018 22:48
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I would suggest at least honing your pen in the Thunderdome before trying to do something this big. It really reads like a first-time attempt. Edit: chitoryu12 posted:I can edit this a whole lot better if I actually have some kind of reference point beyond my own work. Do you have any excerpts of text from another work that writes this kind of scene in a better way? Do you want to write something up yourself that shows how you'd prefer it? chitoryu12 posted:This is the kind of criticism that I can definitely do something with. Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Apr 18, 2018 |
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Apr 18, 2018 22:52
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