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Author Topic: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___  (Read 312760 times)

Emma

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1635 on: April 07, 2016, 06:41:05 pm »

I was thinking of writing a book or perhaps a selection of short stories about 3 Vikings who are accidentally sent to the Old West in a block of ice intended for a refrigerator.

Is this crazy enough to be funny or exactly as stupid as it sounds?

And here it is, several months later.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
By all means, do continue.
Please do, I'd be interested to see how this develops.
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Emma

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1636 on: April 17, 2016, 04:16:27 am »

I had to write this for and English class, this means that it's slightly better edited than usual. I'd be interested to see what you guys think of it as I'm quite proud of it even if the ending is really rushed.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sorry for the double post but this topic hasn't been posted in for ages.
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GiglameshDespair

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1637 on: April 17, 2016, 01:58:19 pm »

I daydreamed about some sort of angry message demanding the surrender of a castle, and decided to write it out. Then I somehow wrote a snippet about a soldier besieging that same castle. The events below take place in some nondescript 'verse I smoked up in half an hour, but I tried to keep things somewhat consistent.


With this I'm mostly interested in whether my sentences seem too long or hard to read, whether it's easy to comprehend what's going on in my action scene, and whether my description of being injured feels apt. If anything else feels wrong, I'd like to know, too.


With this, my primary interest is if this feels threatening enough, and if there's some way to inject additional pathos into it.

But anyway, I would be interested in any other comments as well.
The way you do dialogue is... unique. Personally, I think it'd look a lot clearer if you used " or '.
I vaguely recall you being russian? So maybe it's a country thing. Either way, to me it'd be a lot better with speech marks.

Your writing is pretty good, though.





Here's the first of 6 connected scenes.

Spoiler: A Steady Rhythm 1 (click to show/hide)

Issues:
Call it a sniper rifle. A sniper rifle is a gun. A sniper is a man who shoots that gun.
She's either kneeling or laying down - she can't be both.
Is the piece of paper placed outside the window or inside? You mention it's placed on a desk. Why did Kyle Jorn place it there, then look at it?
Why was the window being open important if she shoots through it anyway?
The sudden switch to first person is disruptive. If you want to show it as her thoughts, either add it elsewhere as well or get rid of it. Italicising it would also help, as it then would stand out as different to the rest of your narrative.
We know the bullet hit him in the head if his head starts bleeding. It feels clunky to add it lodged in his skull.

The way it's written isn't descriptive in an interesting way - and it doesn't describe the important parts. What does this Kyle Jorn look like? You briefly describe the bodyguard. You describe the table. But you don't describe what her target looks like.
You also mostly ignore the other senses. You also don't describe her thought processes at all, what she feels or thinks about assassinating a man. What can she hear, smell, feel?
What time of day is it?
You want the shot to be visceral, dramatic. A man was just murdered. It feels too... dry.

Spoiler: A Steady Rhythm 2 (click to show/hide)

Same problems as above.

Hmm... apparently we'll be doing a fantasy unit in class after break. Should I use something I have ~partly developed, go with something completely new (and probably sucky, my ideas always suck at first, before I refine x100), or combine two things?
Without knowing any of what you're referring to, it's impossible to say. However, you probably want to go with the most developed idea.



I had to write this for and English class, this means that it's slightly better edited than usual. I'd be interested to see what you guys think of it as I'm quite proud of it even if the ending is really rushed.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sorry for the double post but this topic hasn't been posted in for ages.

Isn't he a manager, rather than a CEO?
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Emma

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1638 on: April 17, 2016, 06:08:39 pm »

I had to write this for and English class, this means that it's slightly better edited than usual. I'd be interested to see what you guys think of it as I'm quite proud of it even if the ending is really rushed.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sorry for the double post but this topic hasn't been posted in for ages.

Isn't he a manager, rather than a CEO?
He's meant to be a manager who becomes CEO.
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Avis-Mergulus

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1639 on: April 18, 2016, 07:06:30 pm »

I daydreamed about some sort of angry message demanding the surrender of a castle, and decided to write it out. Then I somehow wrote a snippet about a soldier besieging that same castle. The events below take place in some nondescript 'verse I smoked up in half an hour, but I tried to keep things somewhat consistent.


With this I'm mostly interested in whether my sentences seem too long or hard to read, whether it's easy to comprehend what's going on in my action scene, and whether my description of being injured feels apt. If anything else feels wrong, I'd like to know, too.


With this, my primary interest is if this feels threatening enough, and if there's some way to inject additional pathos into it.

But anyway, I would be interested in any other comments as well.
The way you do dialogue is... unique. Personally, I think it'd look a lot clearer if you used " or '.
I vaguely recall you being russian? So maybe it's a country thing. Either way, to me it'd be a lot better with speech marks.
Duly noted. I was kind of on the fence about the formatting myself.
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Quartz_Mace

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1640 on: April 20, 2016, 03:08:05 pm »

Okay, so I used to be a little bit of a writer (when I was in middle school I was part of a writing club and started writing a book which I since gave up on due to lack of vision and story planning. It was also all fantasy stereotypes essentially, so I don't plan to continue it.) It's been a couple of years since I've done any serious original writing (I did a character journal in a community game and a couple of characters in forum games, so I'm not entirely out of practice as far as writing is concerned.) and I've finally had a concept I think could actually work for a novel and possibly form as a basis for many following stories, but that's getting ahead of myself.

I think the most accurate way to describe my idea is a post-cataclysm renaissance (in the revival sense of the word) story. One day, I got to thinking about how most "post-apocalyptic" fiction has the world devastated, but not quite destroyed, and of the small remaining people, some communities form and anarchy rules pretty much everywhere else. Well, I want to draw from that concept in a more realistic way.

So here's the deal. The year is 2084 (I want to write it far enough in the future that many of the changes are plausible, but also close enough that I don't have to write centuries of fake history and technological predictions). Many changes have been made to the world since the current day. Some new countries have formed. I don't plan on going in to detail about them here, but I've kept a list of important changes (a few highlights: Scotland seceded from U.K. Texas seceded from U.S. Kurdistan was formed.) and plan to map these out before I really start writing. The major nuclear powers of the world have a nuclear war which is swiftly over and results in the destruction/fracturing of most of these. Many countries that were out of the way, neutral, and/or had very good anti-nuclear defense programs survived. Some notable survivors include Canada, Mexico, most of South America, England (though London was hit. Capitol moved to Birmingham.), Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland (good position in mountains, neutrality, and anti-nuke defenses), the Scandinavian countries, most of Africa(not a large target for major powers), Israel (really high tech defenses.), and Australia.

This book will follow a group of U.N. peacekeepers who were working down South in the Congo at the time. After the old world falls, they find themselves stuck far away in a foreign country in which all of the insurgent groups and factions who had previously been kept in check by diplomatic pressure and threat of intervention by the West now see it as a prime opportunity to strike. With the U.N. in shambles, they find themselves cut off from aid, reinforcements, supplies, and most news of the rest of the world. They must adapt and find a way to survive in this new changing world whilst simultaneously trying to uphold their mission and their values.

Right now, I'm trying to decide if the book should be written in third person(probably omniscient) or as a first-hand account from one of those peacekeepers who looks back upon his journey. A major part of the eventual story arc I'm planning involves this group working to protect and spread history and knowledge, and I think a soldier's memoir of this particular event would be a very natural form of worldbuilding with which to accomplish this. What do you think as far as perspective is concerned?

Note about future setting: this is only a work of fiction and in no way reflects what I truly think will happen to the world. It is merely a work of fiction that attempts to be realistic. It may contain minor science fiction, but that will be far from the focus. I'll likely include new weapons that are currently being experimented with but have yet to see implementation of standardization to keep things from getting out of hand.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2016, 03:41:35 pm by Quartz_Mace »
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Sanctume

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1641 on: April 20, 2016, 04:38:36 pm »

@Quartz_Mace, from your descriptions so far, I'm thinking X-COM diaries type without the aliens.  It sounds like you can limit the scope of the narrative from a squad POV, with an over arching of the current world political situation, newer tech that is limited by resources, but not quite down to clubs and spears and stone, and probably more use of ballistics and occasional explosives. 

It could also work like World War Z style documentary from a journalist, but embedded with troops. 

TD1

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1642 on: April 22, 2016, 07:05:21 pm »

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StrawBarrel

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1643 on: April 24, 2016, 02:36:32 pm »

^This is pretty nice. I really liked the word choice and voice.
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Avis-Mergulus

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1644 on: April 24, 2016, 05:53:19 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's pretty great - it feels like something that would have been written a century or two ago, but in a good way. A few phrases feel off to me though, for one: "I once knew many people, / Many lands and many folk" - because it's a little redundant: people and folk are synonymous, right?

For two: "Colours 'gainst the Carribean sky on ropes / Which seemed to sing the songs of Nymphs" - I love this one in general, flag symbolism always gives me the shivers - but the "on ropes" bit sounds both redundant again and a bit too prosaic among that. I mean, what else would they have been hoisting them on?

I really like it, though.
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TD1

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1645 on: April 25, 2016, 12:08:12 pm »

Thanks for the replies.

Avis: I think the first one is excusable, as whilst you can say people and folk are the same, folk can also sort of imply a nation. So - I once knew many [individuals], many lands and many [cultures/nationalities]. That was my intent - it's good to see how it could be interpreted in another way, though.

As for the second one, I agree - that line was a stumbling block to me. Especially since I now realise I misspelled Caribbean, heh. But yes, I ought to have edited it in the time between writing and posting.

Thanks for the feedback - especially the critical elements.
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Insanegame27

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Quote from: Second Amendment
A militia cannot function properly without arms, therefore the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
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The military cannot function without ICBMs, therefore the right of the people to keep and bear ICBMs, shall not be infringed.

Cheesecake

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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1648 on: May 04, 2016, 09:57:37 am »

Spoiler: The Red Beast (click to show/hide)

I originally planned it to be a 40k thing about feral Khorne worshippers, but I think it stands well on its own. Feedback please!
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Re: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___
« Reply #1649 on: May 04, 2016, 10:41:00 am »

Okay, I'm starting to notice that almost everyone formats their stuff the same way. For crap's sake, use a real word processor like Microsoft Word instead of typing it in the post box on the forum. That way if your browser doesn't have spell check you will definitely not miss the simple mistakes. Also, at least try to indent your paragraphs. You should be indenting each new section of dialogue.

I fixed indenting (I mostly didn't mess with your choices on where paragraphs began and ended) and some spelling mistakes:
Spoiler: The Red Beast (click to show/hide)

It won't look very pretty on this website because the margins are quite wide on Bay12 and it makes it look like you're not writing very much, but if you throw your text in a word processor and give it a proper font type and size and formatting you might find that what you're writing starts to look like an actual book. You will start taking your own writing seriously if you treat it that way!
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