11 KiB
[RT] [WIP] [Fantasy] Storyweaver
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Author: u/None *
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URL:
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Score: 20
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Created: 2016-05-24T03:53:57
Post:
[deleted]
Comments:
u/Escapement [+7] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (11 hours later)
OK, I tried to read your story. Got to the first part of the fourth chapter before dropping it. Things that stuck out at me:
- The opening is super, super weak.
Catherine, a 21 year old graduate student, heard the morning news while facing an emerald encrusted mirror and straightening her beautiful blonde hair. Though the girl didn't see it, her television showed a news reporter on the street approaching a young man with slightly spiky, messy brown hair
This immediately pattern matches to something out of the [Bulwer-Lytton contest](http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/). The third word is not the place to be lazy and refuse to write out twenty-one, and that alone almost made me kill the tab and drop the story... but the rest of the opening wasn't much better. This sort of bad writing is not unique to this part of the story, but the opening should draw me in and make me keep reading, and this story completely failed that metric.
You have bits where you write with a sentence leading up to a piece of dialogue, then put a colon and separate the dialogue on the next line. This is super weird formatting, and breaks flow occasionally. You also seem to be constantly worried that the reader will not know who is speaking in a dialogue of two speakers - you have a lot of superfluous 'X said' and 'Y said' stuff in your text that breaks the flow of the dialogue. Shortening it down by using pronouns such as "He said" instead of proper names, or ideally removing them as much as possible altogether and still have the dialogue make sense, would make the dialogue read better and be much less stilted.
Something interesting starts happening at the end of the first chapter. Why didn't the interesting stuff happen at the start, instead? Was the chapter of semirandom foreshadowing and setup work particularly interesting to you?
I dropped the story in chapter 4, during the trial of Arthur. I just couldn't force myself through the particularly awkward and stilted dialogue of this section.
u/space_fountain [+1] (18 hours later)
I've not read it. I might try it, but I will say as somebody who has a lot of trouble not writing X said after every quote I'm not quite sure how to do it better. Yes it would still be clear without them, but as I can tell you after just reading a book that had as far as I can tell no instances of X said it can sound strange in that case too
u/alexanderwales [+5] Time flies like an arrow (18 hours later)
I don't think you really need to vary away from 'X said'. It's something that the eye skips over when reading, for the most part. You still need to worry about flow, but that's separate from the issue of removing ambiguity with speech tagging.
u/GaBeRockKing [+3] Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857 (18 hours later)
but I will say as somebody who has a lot of trouble not writing X said after every quote I'm not quite sure how to do it better
If you have each spoken part on it's own line, and stay under 6 lines or so, you shouldn't need any other description-- just end quote and start newline.
I'd also suggest giving each character distinctive ways of speaking-- verbal tics and sentence structures they favor.
Maybe a character enjoys speaking long, flowing sentences; the semi-colons are almost audible as they pile clause upon clause and metaphor upon metaphor onto their audience.
Another? Terse.
And just because a character has certain traits doesn't mean their speech has to reflect them.
You can have yer fancy-pants, Harvard-educated, but still country boy, or a sweet, homely, but foul-mouthed as hell grandma that curses at the end of every motherfucking sentence, goddamn!
Finally, you can give characters physical tics as well-- maybe they like to tug on their earlobe, or tap their feet, or fiddle with their keychain. Even without directly identifying them, your reader will begin to notice who's speaking by looking at textual clues.
Of course, now I just need to take my own advice ;)
u/Chronophilia [+2] sci-fi ≠ futurology (a day later)
Finally, you can give characters physical tics as well-- maybe they like to tug on their earlobe, or tap their feet, or fiddle with their keychain. Even without directly identifying them, your reader will begin to notice who's speaking by looking at textual clues.
Yup! Unless otherwise indicated, the reader will assume that the last person mentioned is the one talking. It's a neat trick that... I probably use too much, come to think of it. Example:
Violet choked on her tea. "Ex-excuse me?"
See? Don't even need the "she said".
u/Chronophilia [+4] sci-fi ≠ futurology (a day later)
"Ahh that's because they think, quite accurately might I add, that I'm carrying a, small, yet incredibly dangerous nuclear bomb" said Emmet, still trying to find the correct key. He got out a pulsating metallic sphere with his left hand and gave it to Catherine. "Here, hold it for me would you?"
Best line. Gets funnier every time I read it.
"Quick explanation: we're currently inside an-"
"Island-shaped dimension where reality constantly changes," said Arthur, "I know."... I didn't know that. Were we actually told about the flexible reality before this? I think I missed that line.
"The city acts like an anchor for reality. It's the only stable point of the universe and if it gets destroyed, then EVERYTHING will be gone."
This is incredibly contrived.
-I don't get it, why doesn't she just share her feelings with Emmett?-
I didn't notice that either. Was there an entire romance arc that I missed? Am I just bad at remembering things I've read?
The story needs an editing pass, at least. The narration's very stilted, phrased strangely and punctuated inconsistently. There's several errors that your spellchecker should have caught. And you use some words that don't mean what I think you think they mean, I think. All fixed easily enough, you just need someone else to read your story and find the mistakes.
Beyond that, I have some other questions. Emmett seems to be the protagonist, but he's not the viewpoint character. We see the story through Catherine and Arthur's eyes, even though they do essentially nothing to advance the plot. What's the reason for that decision?
Is Emmett secretly the bad guy? In places he's channelling Quirrelmort from HPMoR. Brilliant but dangerous, flippant attitude to other people's lives... Yet he seems too likeable to be a real villain. If that's the twist you're building up to, you need to be less subtle about it.
There's a lot of focus on character interaction, but apart from Emmett I don't find any of the characters engaging. If I want to listen to twenty-something grad students argue about their lives, I hardly need your story for that.
It's the end of chapter 8 and I have no idea what the plot is. Apparently they're saving the universe from an unspecified threat, but I don't see how anything that's happened contributes towards that goal.
Edit: Actually, do they still have the bomb from chapter 2? I don't recall it being put down at any point. Quite an important thing to forget about!
u/None [+1] (a day later)
[deleted]
u/Chronophilia [+1] sci-fi ≠ futurology (a day later)
This is just bizarre. Your summaries and spoilers evoke a very interesting and meta story, one that I'd probably love and not be able to put down. Yet the actual story you've posted seems meandering and poorly-written, no offence. Maybe it's just that it's not finished yet and it'll make more sense as a finished product than as a serial? Like you say, a lot of the interesting twists are yet to come, so large chunks of the story at the moment are effectively pointless until you write the part where their foreshadowing pays off.
I can accept that it's part of Emmett's character to be unhelpfully evasive, but Cathering and Arthur have little reason to trust him. Consider what he's actually done to them - tricked them into coming to an alternate dimension, under threat of the SWAT team surrounding the house and the nuke he'd threatened to use, and while he's the only one who knows how to go back to reality (where they're presumably still surrounded by armed soldiers) - he's basically their abusive kidnapper. But they still trust him and consider him a friend, which is strange.
... I actually did not see any of the things in any of the spoilers coming. Sorry.
Am I right in thinking English isn't your first language? That would definitely explain why you have impeccable grammar but odd turns of phrase, and it means your story would benefit a lot from a native-speaking editor. The jarring language (including your use of -dashes- instead of "quotation marks" for dialogue) seems like a small thing now, but it makes it incredibly difficult for the reader to immerse themselves in the story.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
[deleted]
u/Chronophilia [+1] sci-fi ≠ futurology (a day later)
In its current form, is there really no redeeming value to the story?
Of course not, don't be ridiculous. But as you say, it's a first draft, unedited, and will need some work to reach its full potential.
Still, I've been considering making this a whole book instead of separating it. It really might help it to do it entirely in one go, but I'm not sure if its worth the trouble.
It's not worth the trouble. Finish this project on time and stick with the plan you're already working on. I say, any lessons you learn about how to publish a serial or how to plan a story, you can apply to the next thing you make. Better to have an imperfect, finished project than one that never finishes because you keep trying to make it perfect. (That's why I don't post anything substantial that I write. Once I start editing it properly, I'm too afraid to release it until it's perfect, which it never is. Don't make my mistake.)
Nobody expects your first book to be your masterpiece. You show a lot of potential already, you just need practice to bring it out.
Edit: Quotation marks are the standard in written English. All the English-language stories I've read use quotation marks for dialogue. Other languages vary. German uses „a different style of quotation marks“. French uses «guillemets» for short quotes and a single — emdash when an entire paragraph is dialogue.
u/GaBeRockKing [+2] Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857 (10 hours later)
Yo ;)
u/That2009WeirdEmoKid [+1] (a day later)
Eyyy thanks again for showing me this sub!