NationStates Jolt Archive

Greetings NS general,

Recently, a game i used to play got boring for me, so now to pass the time I'm trying my hand at writing. Not really as a career choice, just something fun to do.
But this doesn't mean I'm totally oblivious to criticism, it would eventually one day feel good to be published, cant we all dream a little?

Anyway, I'm also a fan of the website conceptart.org, where wanna be artists test their skills against the pros and get all kind of tips and advice, so i was craving for a "conceptwriting.org", when it struck me. This is probably the biggest and most creative forum ive ever come across, so abra cadabra, i ask for help and criticism on NS general!

Basically, if you consider yourself a good writer (don't be modest, oh you) and feel like giving some critique to a newby, just leave a reply and ill email you some of what I've written and you can email me some responses.

Essentially I'm appealing for any type of guidance and/or writing help.

Danke shan for any and all help (even though chances are ill just get flamed and told to STFU, as this is still the internet :))

Email it to Max Barry - add the note:

Dear Mr. Barry, can you help me get this published, also maybe edit it if necessary, please let me know how much they will pay me.

kthxbai

I'm sure he'll appreciate the opportunity to help you.

Write every day. Read with a pencil.

Danke shan
It's "Danke schon", noob! gb2languageclass :)

Remember this: If you are writing to explain the environment from someones point of view, include all of their senses (e.g Human: Sight, Hearing, Smelling, Feeling and maybe tasting. Or a wolf would have a particularly stronger sense of smell) This will help you in creating vivid environments.
As with poetry...Do what ever the hell you want I guess! Make sure you look up the rules if you are writing in a specific form though (e.g Sonnets or Haikus)

Edit: Wire me a telegram so that I my great nation can help you!

I'm not a really good writer, but I know what I like to read, and what I don't.

Don't get side tracked with excessive detail. You don't want it to be confusing or boring, and you want to leave the reader room to see it in their own imaginings.

And don't rely on some cheap gimmick to resolve the plot. This is particularily a concern if you are writing sci-fi or fantasy (no they are not the same), as its so easy to write yourself into a situation with no easy resolution and then have some magic device solve everything. Star Trek does this all the bloody time.

This is probably the biggest and most creative forum ive ever come across

Oh dear. I've seen yahoo chatrooms bigger and more creative than this. Not that any of that is a virtue.

But onto th' main topic: just write. Throw it all away at the end of the day and write more when you wake up.

If that seems like a silly thing to do, you might not be cut out for it.

It's "Danke schon", noob! gb2languageclass :)

Actually, it's Danke schön. Or Danke schoen, for those without umlaut typing capabilities. ;)

Greetings NS general,

Recently, a game i used to play got boring for me, so now to pass the time I'm trying my hand at writing. Not really as a career choice, just something fun to do.
But this doesn't mean I'm totally oblivious to criticism, it would eventually one day feel good to be published, cant we all dream a little?

Anyway, I'm also a fan of the website conceptart.org, where wanna be artists test their skills against the pros and get all kind of tips and advice, so i was craving for a "conceptwriting.org", when it struck me. This is probably the biggest and most creative forum ive ever come across, so abra cadabra, i ask for help and criticism on NS general!

Basically, if you consider yourself a good writer (don't be modest, oh you) and feel like giving some critique to a newby, just leave a reply and ill email you some of what I've written and you can email me some responses.

Essentially I'm appealing for any type of guidance and/or writing help.

Danke shan for any and all help (even though chances are ill just get flamed and told to STFU, as this is still the internet :))

No problem. I'll critique anything. I'm also a huge believer in Open Source. If your stuff is good you don't need copyright; having written it first will see you right.

Link?

Really, you should put it where all of us can see it. None of this "I'll email it to you." LInk please.

I personally believe in playing it safe and copyrighting, but I guess its a personal choice.

you sound so sweet and naive.

if you post your work here you have to be prepared for it to be shredded.

if you post your work ANYWHERE you have to be prepared for it to be shredded.

....

if you get your work PUBLISHED you have to be prepared for it to be shredded.

i guess what im saying is that its not easy to take the kind of criticism that comes when you put your work out in the world for people who dont know you to tell you what they think of it.

so work on getting an extremely thick skin.

but not so thick that you reject all negative but valuable criticism.

maybe you should take up drinking.

http://kurtas.ownasite.com/Chapter_One.asp

Theres the first chapter, feel free to email me, telegram me or pm me advice, thoughts or criticism, ill post up chapter two if enough people ask for it i suppose.

if you post your work here you have to be prepared for it to be shredded.

if you post your work ANYWHERE you have to be prepared for it to be shredded.

....

if you get your work PUBLISHED you have to be prepared for it to be shredded.



No probalo, that's exactly what I'm looking for, essentially the more im told it sucks and why, the better i can make it, any other takers for helping a poor literally deprived child learn to write? :(

Actually, it's Danke schön. Or Danke schoen, for those without umlaut typing capabilities. ;)
Wrong again, it's spelled Donkey Soup, and my grandmother had quite a good recipe for it. Why are we discussing cooking in this thread anyway?

That's a lofty goal for someone starting out, to get something published. If you're serious, it's a good idea to start out small, like set aside an hour or so each day to write. Over time you'll have a theme (or if you have one already) to continue working on. The idea is to keep writing, despite not wanting to, no mood, or no ideas. When you have finished writing something, congratulations, the easiest part is over.

Edit. Edit. Edit. Is the only advice there is left after that. I wish you good luck and much success.

No probalo, that's exactly what I'm looking for, essentially the more im told it sucks and why, the better i can make it, any other takers for helping a poor literally deprived child learn to write? :(
well then post a small sample. itll give us a chance to assess whether or not we are interested in what you are writing and what kind of help you might need.

Here's a website that might be of interest to you.

http://www.firstwriter.com

Actually, it's Danke schön. Or Danke schoen, for those without umlaut typing capabilities. ;)

How about just "vielen dank" for the umlaut impaired.

I started to read your work and read a good portion, but that type of subject isn't my thing.

I don't know that demons taking over the world would be a widely popular topic matter, but it's up to you what you write.

Here's some advice: If you intend to have a career in writing, you should spend lots of time practicing on your work. You also should choose a plot line that people can understand without difficulty. The book also has to have details, and background of the characters. It also has to be well written and not rushed.

maybe you should take up drinking.

This is sound advice. And if you just started writing, don't expect to get your work published anytime soon. I've been writing since I was 9, have a degree in writing, worked at a newspaper where I published many (journalistic) stories, and got published in one of my college's poetry journals. I'm still not "published".

(Okay, I only submitted work to two journals and then cried like a girl when it was rejected, but in my defense, I am a girl)

i dont have the strength to take criticism. not even my own. that being a huge constant in the writing biz keeps me out of it.

are you doing something with your writing degree now?

I'll criticize Chapter One (http://kurtas.ownasite.com/Chapter_One.asp)


First up, you are writing for a readership of teenage boys. Forget getting rich, teenage boys don't buy books.

(Yes, you are. As a middle-aged chap, I feel nothing but contempt for your protagonist. He's a shallow and self-obsessed little shit, an impression which sets in during the first paragraph. With himself and his family in mortal danger, pissed off at his father for making the family move countries, he's "listless." That really is the measure of his character and frankly I can't wait for a demon or even a malfunctioning cleaning-droid to suck out his guts.)

"Demon" doesn't mean much to us agnostics. And sci-fi buffs have really moved on from the idea that aliens are inherently threatening. You can paint more fear and loathing in the characters for these "demons" instead of leaving it to the word to tell the reader they should fear.

Secondly, you don't have a consistent point of view. Even in third-person, "background" about the recent history (demon invasion, French forget to be surrender-monkeys, etc) needs to be consistent, but here it's coming straight from the narrator. As if you, the writer, are doing us, the reader, a huge favour by clue-ing us in to what YOUR story is about. There should be some way to make this a part of the experience of your protagonist, Jean. Or possibly as part of the "atmosphere" aboard the ship.

There is simply no point of view that the reader can place (them)self in from paragraph to paragraph. Reading fiction, we the readers want to be uncritical, and put ourselves in the shoes of the protagonist, one of the minor characters, or the fly-on-the-wall. You make that very hard, with your fluctuating attitude towards even the protagonist. At some points (eg "this girl that was so absorbing all his attention in such an inappropriate time") you, the narrator, are openly critical of him.

"Jean wouldn’t know it for a while" is pertinent to this (unseating readers who are trying to see events through his eyes) but also destructive of suspense: the protagonist will survive to learn better! Spoiler!

Thirdly, you need to pay attention to the sequence of events, and timing. On several occasions, actions happen before you describe the causal events (eg the gunner loses his arm so suddenly, but it seems he has already decided that he needs help ... he could more plausibly have lost the arm back when the other two gunners were killed). And look, your protagonist volunteers twice:
“I’ll work the turret, I’m small enough to fit through the gap, but I need one more to work the other turret. Can anyone else come with me?” he asked
*blah blah*
Part bravado, part concern for his family, and part wanting to impress this unnamed girl, Jean spoke up, unknowingly cutting of the girls own volunteering.
“I’ll do it.” "
(The bolded word is also a point-of-view error: who knows that he stopped her volunteering? Him? Her? The narrator?)

You also need to fix the tenses (present and past tense) in sentences like this: "The decoys the gunner was firing are small metallic drones" -- "were" suggests the protagonist's point of view (his understanding of what is happening) but "are" is straight from you. Change of point of view can work, but you should probably signal them clearly with separate paragraphs and different style, if not "he thought" or "it occurred to Jean that..."

Fourthly, the dialogue is far too wordy for the dire situation described. There are huge holes in a space-ship (sky ship? Airship? Who knows,) and some kind of psychic bats ripping new ones by the minute. Nobody is going to say something like "If its too far away you'll just waste your limited amount of ammo and just give the demon something to lazily dodge"
At the start, the dialogue is better. After the action starts, I think you're trying to make the dialogue carry the story and that doesn't work for me ... it feels like the action stops, the characters strike poses and deliver implausible soliloquys. Kinda X-Men.

Fifthly, don't use clichés unless you are adding a new meaning. "Let loose the dogs of war" could be a chapter title, it could be a resolution to a characters inner dilemma (though in either case I would prefer an original form of words) ... but as a way of saying "fired a gun" it is weaker than a simple description.

OK, I'm rather harsh. But I did read the story-snippet right through, and I actually think you could make something of the protagonist's conflicting emotions (selfishness, self-sacrifice but we're-all-going-to-die anyway, lust, contempt for the object of the lust, respect she earns from his failure.) I think overall you've tried to take on too much, and as some other poster said, the result is "hurried."

Have you ever read Heinlein's "Have Space Suit, Will Travel?" If not, I think you might like it ... it develops that confusion between heroism and romance, over much more length than your story does. It has some embarrassingly dorky moments too (Heinlein pretty much sucks, and that was one of his earlier efforts) but parts of it finesse very nicely that confusion about the protagonist's own motivation.

I also think you might, entirely for your own education, consider trying to write some porn. Pornographic writing is unforgiving of wasted words ... pace and mood and point of view have to be just right or it doesn't work. One of the hardest things to do, in fiction or non-fiction, is to edit out the great image or great turn of phrase which just can't be made to fit into the story ... and writing porn it's a bit easier to cull those sentences which aren't helping. If a phrase doesn't work, it's easier to keep it for something "more worthwhile." You can use all sorts of literary devices in porn, but the intent (to induce lust) stays simple for both reader and author.

I find it helps (in my private writing) to think that I am not just writing a story, but writing several stories at once. The stuff that is taken out goes in some other file, a "notes" file to be reworked and used later in some other story where it might fit better.

The "write regularly" advice I saw here also seems sound. A really sincere and really private diary is one way -- be the judge yourself, of how well you can record a thought or experience. Posting lots on NSG is good too -- any possible misinterpretation of your words will definitely be brought to your attention. ;)

i'm writing a book about a war between two PMCs:the Western Mercenary Union(yes,that's where i got my nation name) and the Eastern Mercenary Coalition.the two main characters are a mercenary,who had gotten the job because of not getting a job in astrophysics(and before you ask,we have here in Finland lots of people who have gone to university but have to work in jobs like cleaning) and his wife,who is also a mercenary.

oh ok, so i did a quick read-through since BSB posted the link...

i dont hate your protagonist. i think he has potential as a kick-ass snot who saves the day even though we dont want to admire him for it.

in addition to bsb's very good points, id have to say that i find it unrealistic that the captain's first thought is to calm the passengers instead of ordering the crew to battlestations. i find that there is not enough groundwork laid for why a teenaged passenger has to take a spot in the turret. (dont tell me why, its enough that i was thinking it unrealistic as i read it) i would be much happier if jean and "the girl" were members of the "teen air patrol" and knew a bit about demon fighting already. i also think that even a teen boy would be too focused on not being eaten alive to notice the honey hair of a pretty girl. save that part for after the victory.

you have some other typos and grammar errors that will need to be fixed.

im a sucker for giant flying demons attacking airships. i had trouble focusing on details (and whether or not they were making sense) because i wanted to read on. i would read a second chapter that spells out some of the mysteries (french farmers becoming british royalty?) and hope that they all make perfect sense when you do so.