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Smik posted:I've been working on a story for awhile now and am on revision seven. I played around with the narrative a bit and I need some feedback on this version. I've passed it around to a few people and while they seem to like it, I guess it's time to show it to some complete strangers to get a real feel if it works or not. I’m guessing what you’re looking for is a crit on narrative voice? One thing I noticed is the grammar itself is a bit too formal to match the more colloquial tone you’re going for. For one, you rarely use contractions—not in the first page of dialogue or in the narration. Using a lot more contractions everywhere will help the narrative flow and help the voice you’re going for. You also tend to use “had” in a lot of sentences that would benefit from more immediacy, but that’s a minor detail. Punchier sentences would also help give it a more noir tone. Here’s an example of the kinda changes you could make: quote:The mansion grounds of his client were haggard: trees had become torn and twisted with their branches littering the grass, the stonework was mouldy, mushrooms dotted the lawn in circles, and the small pond next to the shattered remains of a statue was an unhealthy green. For a faerie haunting it was practically cliché “His client left his mansion grounds haggard (insert speculation regarding a lack of gardener perhaps): trees torn and twisted, branches littering the grass (insert creepy simile), mouldy stonework. (Fowl adjective) mushrooms dotted the lawn in circles. The small pond next to shattered remains of a statue was a stinking (another fowl adjective) unhealthy green. Practically cliché for a faerie haunting.” I’ve broken it up into shorter sentences to try to improve the rhythm, dropped excess verbiage, and rearranged the sentence structure in various ways. All the time you want to consider whose pov you’re seeing details from. Right now you’re omnicient, but even an omnicient pov can benefit by coloring the details so everything is presented with an attitude. You have to decide how closely you want that omnicient pov to zoom into the character’s heads, because in that case this house would be seen through the protagonist’s eyes and you have to insert his opinions about everything. That’s what a noir tone, even a comical one like this one (and like Dirk Gently), does best. Like, in the next bit where you describe the clients, it’s all distant and formal and matter-of-fact when instead it oughta be Carter’s read on these people the entire time, rather than the one point you barely dip into his head with, “JD suspected there might have been an additional half-child to complete the statistical expectations…” Do more of this—do it with everything, all the time. I’m also not sure if omnicient is the best pov choice, because the whole thing would be stronger and more consistent sticking to Carter’s pov. His interaction with the guard, we don’t need to know what the guard thinks but rather Carter assuming what the guard must be thinking. Same for the interactions with his client. His pov in the intro is of course fine, but later we don’t need it. Carter can assume this gated-community white dude is mistrustful and trying to rationalize him as “one of the good ones.” Carter’s opinion on that would be way more interesting. Like this… quote:It is worth noting that while Doug was quite frankly a twit, had grown up in a world where due to his financial position, and regardless of how wrong he could be about something no one near him would contradict his ideas. Now his very reality had been invaded by something horribly alien, and no matter how professional JD behaved he was still (as far as Doug was concerned) another foreign element. This is the kind of thing you can slightly edit to make this Carter’s thought, cause he’d be well aware of where he stands with these kinda people. Another thing, regarding your protag’s blackness—don’t be afraid to lean just a little bit into AAVE. Now I say that with a caveat—don’t go too hard and make drat sure you know exactly how AAVE works before you use something (like the habitual aspect “be”). But do use a fuckton of contractions in his dialogue when he’s not code switching. Don’t be afraid of “gotta, woulda, coulda, haveta, y’all, s’posed, cause, till, aight…” What I mean by code switching is this: “Unless I can get inside and start looking for evidence I don’t know what to call it yet. You want to come with me to watch me work?” This is fine. He’s likely making his speech less ”black” to talk to rich white people here, but you can actually acknowledge that (maybe earlier with the guard), and have him speak way less formally when he’s not talking to clients and whatnot. For example here: “Good. Aight, let’s get to business.” He’s still talking to rich white guy, so that would be a slip. You could either call attention to that, or go the opposite way with, “All right,” he drew out all the letters so they sat just right… or somesuch. Since you’re leaning comical, you could even have him lightly parodying the people he’s talking to by taking on some of their mannerisms to try to put them at ease while laughing inside. Overall the story itself is engaging and the humor adds and extra spark, but you could push further to make the voice really swing, and then you’ll have nailed it.
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Jan 22, 2023 21:53
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Smik posted:Thanks very much for taking the time to read it. I've been flip-flopping on POV between omniscient and tight third person because the story has a lot of quirky elements to it and I remember reading that omni works better for it. The protag is black because I needed a heroic character and my brother-in-law is both former navy and worked as nurse during COVID so I felt he qualified (my wife was black but she's been gone 8 years now or I'd definitely be getting help from her). The only problem is I'm not black so AAVE is something I'm not great with (wife used to ask me not to try) and will probably need to research more. I think not knowing AAVE, it’s probably safest to lean on heavy contractions in speech and dropping some slang here and there without getting into don’t-you-dare territory. What you’ve been told about omnicient being better for quirky is not really true. The thing with making a limited pov quirky is you transfer those quirks to the pov character, and that can strengthen your main character to an impressive degree. If your black protag is the one making all the sly observations and assuming the thoughts in other people’s heads—even possibly being the narrator reconstructing things he didn’t witness—and noticing his own foibles, then you’ve got yourself an A+ protagonist to carry the story. Whereas by splitting the narrator’s personality from the protagonist, you could weaken the protagonist to just another player in the play, and strong black protag seems like the better way to go. It would also be (or so it seems from what I’ve read), and easier edit for you to do, because the sardonic observations you’ve already made could easily be ascribed to Carter—they already feel like the kind he’d make.
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Jan 23, 2023 00:22
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I’ve finally finished what I hope is the last major revision of a novel I’ve been working on for years, and I’d like some impressions from outside my writing group on the opening chapters. This was supposed to be the first book in a huge scifi series (I’ve partially written 5 books in it so far), and I’m concerned it’s going to give the wrong impression/expectations for the rest of the series. For one, it’s a coming-of-age story of my long-term protagonist and I’m worried it reads as too YA when the rest of the series is definitely not. If this is the case, I may shelve it for a while an call it a prequel. Tentative title is Earthling. Duran was genetically engineered to live in space, but the program was deemed illegal and shut down. Now he must navigate a life on Earth he’s ill-suited for. He fucks around and finds out more than he ever wanted to know about himself and the secretive Institute that watches over and controls him. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xiMErKBZXLyzkn4ekWQUCgbbYUfkfhbipaZmdfwwez4/edit
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Jan 23, 2023 00:39
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Sally Forth posted:Once the story gets going, Duran's voice is a lot of fun and the setting is interesting enough that I would've happily kept reading past the pages provided, but I think the prologue is doing you a real disservice. A character we don't know yet thinking in abstract terms about events we haven't seen is really hard to get a grip on. I almost stopped reading out of fear the whole story would be that vague, but once you get past it, the prose is grounded and engaging. I’m definitely self-publishing because I actually got 15 books planned in this series and I don’t want trad pub to mess up my decades-long obsessive plan. Though this novel is grounded on Earth, it goes into full space opera spanning several centuries. It starts out a bit like the Expanse, set in the solar system and mostly taking physics seriously except for extra-dimensional shenanigans. But the later stuff is way more like Adrian Tchaikovsky’s recent series (Children of Time, The Shattered Earth). Duran sticks around, getting less and less human over time while trying to retain this core of humanity inside all the weirdness. The prologue is something I expanded on thinking this would end up a prequel. Really valuable to know it doesn’t work without context—thank you! I’m glad you found Duran’s voice engaging once the actual story starts, especially since this character is gonna be carrying a huge chunk of this series. It’s been a fun balancing act keeping the same jokey slangly tone as the character evolves into something more alien.
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Jan 24, 2023 16:33
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