# Request for savage criticism.



## foozzzball (Aug 28, 2008)

Here's a little vignette from some setting-development work I was up to a week or two back. Please go ahead and tear it to shreds! Tips and tricks appreciated.

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Was it truly so wrong to crop grass? To put one's nose closeby the ground, smell its scent, and chew upon the soft green? It was a long time ago, that Ainan did that. Long ago he stood on the grasses of the Wide Plains in the early morning, surrounded by the wives and his children. The long walk from one city to another, it was hard on the youngest, though they were brave. The head wife, old Humi, she knew the way as well as Ainan. Better, perhaps. So Ainan was glad to sit with the youngest to help them catch up with the others. he even took great joy in it.

They had done it every year. Made the long journey, coming to the places where the wives would carefully tear away the grasses and plants that were not wanted, left the good grasses to grow freely and well. There was always plenty, and fresh water, and Ainan had sat with his sons and daughters and put his nose to the earth that he had loved as much as any wife - more, perhaps, than any wife. He and his children had eaten of that earth, had never gone hungry.

That was long ago.

He looks at his hands. They had been strong, once. Before they had been shackled in metal. When there had been the root of a tree that the wives had not wanted, he could pull it free. If one of the wives or children were tired, he could carry all their things easily - all their blankets and water. But now his hands were old, the nails upon his fingers gnarled and wretched. Their black shine gone cracked grey from years of scrabbling at the earth.

Not his earth. The earth that belonged to the noble squirrel lord. When Ainan had still been strong, he had carried that noble lord's sedan chair, so that the damn little rat of a man could see all that was his.

His stomach hurt him. The squirrels, they thought one must eat only at dawn and dusk. That they must not touch the earth, that all such things led into filth and depravity. That to put one's nose closeby the ground, to smell it, and to chew upon soft green was wrong. So instead there were handfuls of grain and broken twigs and old dry stalks from the farms, and Ainan's teeth grew crooked.

If they had not taken the wives from him, or him from the wives, perhaps one of them would have helped. Taken a flat stone to even Ainan's teeth, his fingernails... even his hooves were slowly twisting, rotten by water one day and frayed against stone the next.

It was not so long ago that he told the children of the four great journeys. Not so long ago that he had stood upon the Wide Plains, and urged the children to hurry forward. Not so long ago that he had eaten the green.

It cannot be so long ago, because Ainan remembers it so well. He shakes his hands, and listens to the chains. He was lucky. Few had chains, most were simply tied, or branded. But shackles of metal...

Those were only for the strong willed, the ones who would not let themselves be sold and bought, the ones who would break the ropes and bare their teeth at the lash. The ones who were free in heart.

So it was that they came, and they pulled the shackles from Ainan's wrists, and bound him with rope, and he whispered, "long ago I stood on the grasses of the Wide Plains, in the early morning."

But they did not care.


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## Shouden (Aug 28, 2008)

I am seeing a lot of repetition of terms i.e. "I cannot be so long ago this happened, not so long ago this happened..." I do this sometimes as well, but I try to limit it, because that kind if repetition indicates a thought (and each part should be separated by a semicolon. Never underestimate the power of the semicolon. It can turn This:

"The squirrels, they thought one must eat only at dawn and dusk. That they must not touch the earth, that all such things led into filth and depravity. That to put one's nose close by the ground, to smell it, and to chew upon soft green was wrong."

into this:

"The squirrelsâ€¦they thought one must eat only at dawn and dusk; that they must not touch the earth. They thought all such things led into filth and depravity; that to put one's nose close by the ground - to smell it and to chew upon soft green - was wrong."

See it has adds a bit more emotion and depth.) But again I try to limit this to a maximum of three statements. (maybe four depending on the amount of emotion I want to portray.

There are also some minor grammar mistakes that I see. (like the ones you yelled at me for) Such as:

"There was always plenty, and fresh water, and Ainan had satâ€¦"

Which would read better as:

"There was always plenty - and fresh water - and Ainan had satâ€¦"


One other thing that got to me was it is hard to follow what is going on. There is no real description of the main character or what is really happening in the scene, and it leave the reader scratching his head for more info. A general rule of thumb: If you can't figure out what is going on by the end of the second paragraph (or at most, the first page) then you need to clarify things better.

When a reader goes to pick up a book they are going to open it and read the first paragraph to see if it catches their interest. If they don't understand anything by the end of the first paragraph they might read the second to see if it clears  up anything, and maybe the first page, but if they are scratching their noggins by the end of the first page, they are going to loose interest fast.

Anyways, just wanted to provide some  input.

(see, I didn't have to resort to being all nasty and stuff.)


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## kitreshawn (Aug 28, 2008)

I will start out with a paragraph by paragraph breakdown:

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Paragraph 1:

"Was it truly so wrong" may be better as "Was it so wrong".

"ou mention "the wives and his children."  This is confusing.  Are all the wives his?  If so they should be his wives.  If all the wives are not his, why are all of the children his?  Even if all the children are his, or if the wives are not all his, it would be better at this point to say "the wives and children" or "his wives and children."  Pick one or the other, whichever you feel is better.

"The long walk from one city to another, it was hard on the youngest, though they were brave."  I would write this as: "The long walk from one city to another.  It was hard on the youngest, though they were brave."  or "The long walk from one city to another -- It was hard on the youngest, though they were brave."

Last sentence it is unnecessary to say that he helps the children catch up "with the others."  Simply saying he helps them catch up is enough, people will understand the rest on their own.  It may also be completely unnecessary to say he took great joy in doing so, you already mentioned he was glad to help the children catch up.


Paragraph 2:

"They had done it every year" would be better written "They did it every year."

You say they tear away the "grasses and plants."  Grasses are plants, so it would be perfectly fine to say "they tore away the plants."  People will understand this to mean that unwanted plants, such as bad grasses, weeds, and the like are being weeded out.  Also it is bulky to say that he good grasses were left to grow "freely and well."  It would be better to change this to simply "freely."  You may also want to consider "healthy."

The next sentence... is a run on.  It is so long and bulky it becomes awkward.  Personally I would try something closer to: "There was always plenty and Ainan sat with his sons and daughters and put his nose down to that earth that he loved as much as any wife."  If you really want that last bit you could tack on "-- perhaps even more." to the end.

Final sentence, change "had eaten" to "ate" and replace "had never gone hungry" with "and never went hungry."

Paragraph 3: 

This is fine.  Only a single sentence but it works.


Paragraph 4:

"Before they had been" would be better written "Before being".

"Wives or children were tired, he could carry all their things easily - all their blankets and water" should probably be changed to "wives or children got tired he could carry all their things easily."  The comma in this case gets in the way.  Also that end part is probably unnecessary.  Blankets and water are things, he is going to carry them by default.  This early in the story it is probably not needed to lay out exactly what he would carry for them.


Paragraph 5:

"When Ainan had still been strong, he had carried that noble lord's sedan chair, so that the damn little rat..." would be better written "When Ainan had still been strong he carried the noble lord's sedan chair so the damn little rat..."  Just removing a couple words and a commas that are not strictly necessary.


Paragraph 6:

I doubt his stomach is going to hurt anyone else so instead of "His stomach hurt him" you are safe with "His stomach hurt."  It is more intimate and less clinical sounding.

Also near the end where you talk about his teeth it does not fit in so much with the rest of the paragraph.  The paragraph is talking about his hunger, not about his teeth.  Move the reference to his teeth to the next paragraph.


Paragraph 7:

This one is mostly fine, although as I mentioned this is where you should bring up his now bad teeth.  You might try writing it a couple different ways to make it seem less stilted but that is about the only thing I have to say.


Paragraph 8:

"It was not so long ago that he told" at the beginning may be better as "No long ago he told".  It is shorter, just as clear, and removes a few dead wood words.  Also, while repetition of sentence beginnings is generally a big no-no here it may add dramatic weight (besides, you already do it later in the paragraph anyway, so may as well make the whole thing uniform).

"Not so long ago that he had stood upon" would be better as "Not so long ago that he stood upon".

"had eaten" again simply use "ate".


Paragraph 9:

You changed tense here.  While you could probably argue that present tense is correct, and may be technically right, it is jarring to the reader.  Stick to past tense.  Your reader won't be confused by it.

"It could not have been so long ago because Ainan remembered it so well.  He shook his hands and listened to the chains.  He was lucky, few had chains.  Most were simply tied or branded.  But shackles of metal..."

The above is how I would write it.  I rearrange punctuation mostly, but also kept the tense strictly in the past.


Paragraph 10: 

This one is fine as is.  You MIGHT consider making that first bit "Those were only for the strong willed" its own sentence as well as ever spot where you use a comma.  Again, in this case the repetition lends weight to the drama.


Paragraph 11:

Too many "and's" in the first sentence.  Try instead: "So it was that they came, pulled the shackles from Ainan's wrists, and bound him with rope."  It is much cleaner that way.  Continue:  "He whispered, "Long ago I stood on the grasses of the Wide Plains in the early morning."  Make it its own sentence, capitalize where you start the dialogue, and remove an unnecessary comma between Wide Plains and in the early morning.


Paragraph 12:

This is good as is.

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General overview:

Your work has a bad case of the "had" monster and the "that" monster.  Usually these two words are unnecessary and can either be removed without any problems at all, or have several words around them substituted for a single word in the past tense.  It is a common problem I have as well, but be aware of it.  You won't need to remove every instance of these words (sometimes they are just the best tool available) but carefully look at each time you use them.

You also seem to avoid the use of contractions.  Is this intentional?  In some cases the use of them can make a piece read much smoother.  I would suggest putting in contractions everywhere it is possible just to see how it reads that way, then go through point by point and decide if it is better with or without contractions.  Contractions generally lend to a smoother feel while keeping the words separated leads to a more precise or pointed feel.  Decide which is right for the moment in the story, or if this is intentional consider if it is fully necessary to stick to no contractions.  Light use can sometimes help with the way a work reads when it would otherwise require massive restructuring.

Watch your tenses.  There is rarely an excuse to change from past to present tense in the middle of a work.  Overall the beginning does spark interest, but the switch to present tense ruined that by jarring me from the story.  A reader has cues other than the tense of the writing to tell if something is happening now or in the past so the change of tense was not necessary at all.

I personally feel you overuse commas according to modern styles.  You rarely placed a comma in a place I felt was outright wrong however contemporary style is streamlining to remove punctuation in the middle of sentences except for where it is clearly and absolutely necessary.


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## foozzzball (Aug 28, 2008)

You kind of, uhm. Have some dangling parentheses which makes following you a little difficult, Shouden.

Anyway. The repetition you bring up is for effect. As for the punctuation... Don't be so hard on the common comma. It's a wonderful little guy. It does get confusing when I use too many of them, though, and... I do occasionally have comma-itis. I disagree with your assessment that it has more 'emotion and depth', to me it reads a little more clinically. Semi-Colons are, at least as I interpret them, primarily used as a stronger form of comma. The usage of an ellipsis in the front there... well. That's maybe a good thought. It's stronger than the comma, and "the squirrels;" would sound too authoritarian. Just a comma there after 'the squirrels' does feel a little weak, though? I get very nervous about abusing the ellipsis, though. It sneaks into my informal writing a little too much, but, I shouldn't be so paranoid about it not to use 'em now and then.

Is what you're pointing out as a grammar mistake purely the commas versus dashes thing? I'm pretty sure either will do when setting a paranthetical statement apart from the rest of a sentence. Or was there some other fix I didn't notice?

The difficulty in being able to follow what's going on, Mmmh. I think usually I'm cheating, with this specirfic piece, since I intend to wedge it in as flavour material inbetween setting details dealing with 'the subjugated horses'. Not that I should be cheating like that.

Problem is, I wrote the darn thing, so I cannot have any kind of perspective on whether or not somebody's going to scratch their head with this. Is there something in particular about the piece that made you lose track, or is it purely the 'missing link' of the protagonist being an enslaved horse musing about their past?



Kitreshawn; oooh. Paragraph by paragraph. These are useful. Let me respond paragraph by paragraph.

1) The addition of the word 'truly' takes the feel of the sentence and makes it sound stilted and overbearing. Like an old man. Or at least that's the angle I was shooting for.

The wives and his children - he does not possess the wives, he does possess the children. The wives are independant and potentially superior. He is apart from the wives, he does not 'own' them - perhaps the reverse. It was intended as a subtle hint in that direction. The stallion in a herd of wild horses is, apparently, not neccesarily the top dog. He can be replaced easily. But his kids are not going to up and stop being his kids just because he's been replaced.

Splitting it into two sentences seems unneccesary, and the usage of a dash just seperates it out even more. Maybe 'The long walk from one city to another was hard for the youngest, although they were brave'? Taking the other direction and connecting the statements more strongly.

Is it unneccesary to say he took great joy in it? He's glad to sit with the youngest and help them. I'm... glad to help take out the trash. I do not take great joy in it. The phrase is there to emphasise that this is important to him. Also, repetition of concepts is a fairly standard rhetorical device. If we were editting for brevity, though, I'd agree wholly - maybe just strengthen up the initial decleration of 'this is a good thing', or rephrase the line entirely. Something I've spotted, however, is that 'he took great joy in it' isn't capitalized despite it being a seperate sentence. Imma fix that.


2) 'They did it every year' can be extended to assume they still do it. I don't think you can extend 'They had done it every year' in the same way, not as easily. Also it loses the 'old man' vibe, or at least I feel it does.

Mentioning the grasses seperately brings them forward seperately. You could say '...would carefully tear away the plants that were not wanted', but this doesn't neccesarily bring up the same mental imagery that '...would carefully tear away the grasses and plants that were not wanted' does. Grass is significant. It's more significant than other kinds of plants. Factually it's the same, but I'm trying to make grass stand out to the reader as something significant to Ainan. 'Freely' as opposed to 'freely and well' is another issue of style. Merely 'freely' implies a lack of care for what grows there, to my mind. Words like 'healthy' too clinical. 'Freely and well' - to my mind - starts looking like there's some... specific desire for this 'good grass' to not merely run rampant, but to be _well_. Whole and right.

That next run on sentence... yeah. It's lengthy. I wouldn't try to merge it at all, though. Or cut away words. I'd try to split it and add things, maybe; 'There was always plenty to eat, and fresh water to drink. Ainan had sat with his sons and daughters and put his nose to the earth that he had loved as much as any wife - more, perhaps, than any wife.' Then again, just 'plenty' works well too, rather than adding some kind of qualifier to it like 'to eat'. 'There was plenty' is not very grammatically correct but if plenty is a thing, it is a thing that would imply good times to me. Maybe; 'There was always plenty, always fresh water to drink.'?

Had eaten to ate, though? 'He and his children ate of that earth and never went hungry' as opposed to 'He and his children had eaten of that earth, had never gone hungry'? I prefer the original line, honestly. It's that old man talking thing.


3) Yeah. The single sentence set off on its own, sometimes a single word, is something I do too often. But it brings a lot of emphasis onto very few words... which I like doing.


4) 'Before being shackled in metal'? Hmm. Hm Hm hm. Initially I did not like this concept, I felt it might be another 'where is my old man voice?' moment, but looking at the sentence structure around it, it does add a nice little sort of... punch and finality to the line. I'll have to think about that one.

The full line is 'If one of the wives or children were tired, he could carry all their things easily - all their blankets and water.' Breaking this down we have three statements, 'If one of the wives or children were tired', which is not a sentence on its own. 'He could carry all their things easily', which is a sentence on its own. 'All their blankets and water.' Again, not a sentence by itself.

'If the one of the wives or children got tired...' is changing the sentence's meaning, subtly. It makes it slightly more future oriented, if, in the future, something happens, this can happen. Granted I've written the sentence badly. It should be rewritten entirely, properly past tense. something more like the line before it. 'When one of the wives or children had become tired, he had carried all their things for them. All their blankets and water.'

Also the blankets and water thing is not needless itemizing - that is basically everything they carry. Informationally it's not required because, yes, he's carrying them by default, but it adds a little to the reader's knowledge of events if there is an implication that everything they own - or at least the major items therof - are blankets and water-carrying vessels.

(Also, 'looks' is a tense violation. More on this below.)


5) Hmmm. I think the way you've got it is too dynamic, too active. It sounds... less lamenting somehow? Also it's too long, that _needs_ a comma to set it off somewhere. I know it's popular to be sparing as possible with commas, but I just find it unreadable if they're not there. It's that blasted comma-itis I have. (I thought I recovered from this disease back in my teens! It's back to haunt me! Noooo~!)


6) It may be less clinical and more intimate, but it's less visceral (to me). His stomach is not part of him, it is some exterior thing or condition that is being inflicted on him. He is not in pain for no reason, he is in pain because this external factor - his stomach - is inflicting pain on him.

The teeth thing is very relevant to this paragraph, but due to information that should be implied but isn't clearly stated. He's a horse. Horses have funny problems with their teeth if you do not feed them right, being fed 'twigs and old dry stalks' would directly cause his teeth to grow badly.


7) Well, it being stilted is part of the voice of the piece. And as mentioned above, the tooth problems need to occur in the previous paragraph - also the tooth trouble helps lead into this one.


8) I preferred to off-set the weight of using straight out repetition by leading into it with the first varied form. Making it uniform would... be making it uniform. Which was something I was trying to avoid. Ideally I would find some similar, but slightly different, way of starting the last line. Maybe just italics for emphasis on the 'so', something.

Again, I find 'had eaten' and 'ate' to give the line very different atmospheres. I prefer 'had eaten'. (Which is why I used it.)


9) We've been talking about Ainan's past and how wonderful it was, yet here he sits in chains. I know that switching tenses is jarring, and that's specifically why I did that - to jar the reader from that pleasant remembrance of Ainan's time with the children, etcetera, just as he himself is jarred from it. Some people will disagree with me but this is one of the rare, rare cases I claim to use that 'artistic license' thing. I use it a little earlier too. But the usage here is, intentionally, the most visible violation of tense. Feel free to imply my license has expired/is invalid, though.


10) Yeah. As mentioned above somewhere, I abuse repetition. Making the first part a sentence on its own would draw weight to it, but... that'd be at the expense of the last line, 'The ones who were free in heart', which I consider to be more important given the switch to rope.


11) W.... what? Capitalize the start of a quotation? Not 'She said, "words"' but 'She said, "Words'? Okay. I. I. Wow. Okay. 'The Elements of Style' seems to go with this, and, also, my musty old 1930s era copy of Fowler's 'The King's English' seems to imply it but doesn't make any explicit statement about capitalization, that I can find. (The book smells _intoxicating_. I am very concerned that some ancient printer's ink is gradually killing me...)

This is where I miss having access to an English teacher. So. Apparently the start of a quoted sentence in dialogue is capitalized, regardless of how it sits in relation to the framing sentence? I did not know that. 

Lots of ands. Uhm. I like ands. I shouldn't like ands, but I do. This is a failing of mine and I need to examine this tendancy until I either kill it stone dead or start only using it when I get out that 'artistic license' thing. 

As for how to break up/weld together the sentence. I have to think about where I want the weight to sit. I think I want it to sit on the rope. As it is the rope thing just kind of gets tangled up in this long sentence. Putting his whispered lament into a sentence of its own feels wrong to me, somehow. It gives it legs to stand on as a statement, you know? Ainan needs to be swept under the carpet, metaphorically, along with his lament. Bringing attention to it defeats that.

The comma between 'wide plains' and 'early morning' is something that bears thinking about. To me it kind of adds a halting quality to his dialogue? But, the comma is missing in the original material which he's repeating. Hm.


12) But I started a sentence with a conjunction! Isn't that baaaaad?


---

Overview)

Had-and-that-itis are monsters, but I feel that replacing them - while working well for brevity - frequently changes the text's tone. I do need to keep an eye on it, though. It isn't something I should be using thoughtlessly, no.

Contractions would kill the voice of the piece, it's very intentional. Well. ... It's not _intentional_ intentional, I don't run around searching for and murdering apostrophes in their sleep, but it's an important factor for the stilted 'old man' voice I'm searching for.

As for the tense, strictly, strictly speaking I should probably try for a more ambiguous or invisible angle in the first instance with 'looks' back in paragraph four, I think it was. Most of the time when I do it, I do it very deliberately.

As for modern styles... One of my most treasured english reference books is a 1930 copy of a book originally published in 1906. Unfortunately conforming to modern style is not something I have any desire to do, at least not with my prose. Comma-itis running amok, though, particularly without me realizing it, is something I'll need to keep an eye on. I need to get back into the habit of thinking twice before I smack down a comma, basically. It's not a bad habit to have.


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## Shouden (Aug 28, 2008)

I think Kitreshawn touched on some of the confusing parts in the first sentence. And the grammar...I would have to read over it again. I think it is mainly the commas and some other minor things.

Back to the confusing part - Well, it's not only trying to infer that the protagonist is a horse (which is hard to get from just the first paragraph. I figured it out, but there were parts that made me doubt my assessment one of which, kitreshawn pointed out.)

it's also his relationship with the the other characters in the story, and what in the world is going on in the first paragraph. You nudged at the setting a little  better in the second paragraph (although, squirrels taking over the world is a bit hard to imagine, and yet it's not for some reason. Evil little rodents.) Making a story a slow read by spreading out detail and forcing the reader to make inferences all over the place is fine, but you don't want to make it too slow otherwise it gets boring.

And um.....it's 2008...almost 2009. using a reference that is over 100-years-old is probably not the best thing. Styles like that aren't going to appeal to many and when you are writing about anthropomorphic characters...I don't think anyone from that era would ever have read that kind of story. If you place your story back then it probably would have been burned when the Bookmobiles came around. (I mean, I read a Jack London book that was published in 1900 and was re published in 1928. It was a great read, but I'm not going to start copying the prose of it.)

The English of today has changed slightly. It bugs me a little that you are using  an outdated reference as your guide. But whatever.


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## foozzzball (Aug 28, 2008)

Well. The story's a vignette that's under a thousand words long. If I clutter it up with setting details, well. It probably wouldn't be under a thousand words long anymore.

I could theoretically sneak the word 'horse' in there, but then we start running into narrative problems. Ainan knows he's a horse. He knows the world he's in. Conveying a lot of detail that's extraneous to the viewpoint character would start pulling the perspective from a very close third person to a more omniescent third person.

As for my reference material... the way the language is used changes, certainly, but the basics of it don't. And if you slavishly follow any reference guide or school of thought your prose is going to come out icky. I use reference materials when I'm confused, not when I'm trying to compose my every sentence.

Otherwise?

Wind in the willows. Publication date? 1908. Black Beauty. Publication date? 1877. Island of Doctor Moreau? 1896. Peter Rabbit? 1902.


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## Shouden (Aug 28, 2008)

Great, buddy, your character knows what's going on. What about the reader though? The reader isn't Ainin.

And you also forgot Call of the Wild and White Fang that were published around 1900.

But you also have to remember that every time a book is re-released it can undergo some minor and  even major changes. Like when I read "Son of the Wolf" by Jack London he used a lot of the "thous" and "thees" back in 1900. but if you were to pick up a newer copy of White Fang, (which was published around the same time) you find none of the old language.

Oh, and if you are going to use an archaic English book for your grammar, please don't complain bout other people's grammar.


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## foozzzball (Aug 28, 2008)

There you go, Jack London too. So, yes. People from that era may very well have read these kinds of stories.

The King's English, more or less unchanged, is still being reprinted. Strunk and White's 'The Elements of Style', which I also use, was - I think - originally written in the thirties and recieved some minor updates in the fifties and seventies. Eats, Shoots, and Leaves is not necessarily to be considered a reference book, but it is very up to date. In the important areas, Eats, Shoots and Leaves agrees wholly with The King's English.

Yes, the language changes, but there's a reason you can pick up and read Shakespeare's plays as he wrote them and still understand them, ultimately. (You may have a little trouble with the type-setting.) Chaucer is a little more difficult, but he was fourteenth century. Shakespeare was... seventeenth? I'm not sure. But the point is, 1906 is very recent english. Very palatable. Much more formal than the english in common use nowadays, true.

So, I am very happy and comfortable complaining about grammar, regardless of how old or new my reference books are. I would complain about yours in your post there, but I suspect you would be very unhappy with me exercising my desire to complain.

Also, I don't know why Jack London used a lot of thous and thees in 1900... but... it wasn't very common usage back then, as far as I am aware. I think it was already declining in Shakespeare's day.

Basically, changes in written english have been very slow since Gutenburg stepped in.


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## Shouden (Aug 28, 2008)

You should read Watership Down by Richard Adams. (1972) It's not as old as some of the others, but it should give a bit more modern style. (the film was disturbing  from what I remember. Should be right up your alley).

And the Shakespearian prose in Jack London's books seem to be used to set the mood and it was simply his  style of writing. Most of it was used in the dialogue. Remember, London spent time up in the Klondike and that is what he wrote about mostly. Who knows, people up there might've talked like  that when he was up there.


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 28, 2008)

Sorry if I repeat something someone else said.  I'm not reading this wall of text to check.

First and foremost... grammar is mostly fine (few comma usage errors I spotted), and nothing terribly wrong so far as 'style' (as defined by William Strunk Jr.).  And I think I like the symbolism (I'm assuming this is about cow ranches, or something?).
But I think what would make this piece a hell of a lot better is if you didn't try to write it in someone else's style (as in, the way they write), know what I mean?  It's pretty obvious you're *trying* to make it sound a certain way, and it just doesn't seem to be working.  The fact that you never use contractions, the repetition of certain phrases, the slow, formal, gliding style... basically it just comes across as pretentious.  The reason it works in other works (older works, mostly; hardly anyone seems able to pull off that kind of thing anymore) is because the folks who wrote like that lived in a certain time and place, and had a certain kind of education.  That style was a product of an atmosphere and a way of life that you (I'm going to assume) just don't have.  Any attempts to copy it will come across sounding like... well, like you're trying to copy it.  Chris Paolini has this same problem in that he wants to sound like J.R.R. Tolkien; Paolini is in his 20's and grew up in rural Montana.  He's not going to sound like Tolkien, no matter how many SAT words he manages to pull out of his hat.
If you want to keep trying, by all means do so, and maybe some day when you graduate from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar in English literature or live in a log cabin in snowy Alaska, spending your days and nights teaching yourself to read, you can pull it off to great effect.  But for right now, try coming up with something that feels more natural to you.  Because then it will feel more natural to the reader, as well, and it won't be as wearying to read.
You're good enough that you can be moving beyond imitating other writers, is what I'm saying mostly.


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## kitreshawn (Aug 29, 2008)

I'll just touch on things I think are most importaint this time.  Many of my suggestions are simply that.  Suggestions.  They aren't there to point out errors so much as to have you consider doing it another way.

The wives and his children thing.  I understand what you are saying there, however he technically does not own the children either.  What you are doing here is fighting against social norms and reader expectations which ultimately makes it confusing.  For instance, I doubt that your father owns your mother.  Yet we still say that she is his wife (or he is her husband).  Now yes, your character being a horse perfectly understands how logical the things he says are... but there is a problem.  Your target audience, despite it being furry, is composed 100% of humans.  They are going to view anything presented to them with human expectations.  This does not mean you cannot introduce this new idea to them, but rather that you need to do so on THEIR terms.  Doing otherwise, as I said, is confusing.

They did it every year:  I suggest this for two reasons.  First it gets rid of an unnecessary "had".  Second is for subtily.  You already imply at the very start that something has changed.  This creates a nice effect of the reader wanting to know more about what is different.  But to continually hammer on the fact that things are different insults the intelligence of the reader and also lessens the shock value of seeing just how much things have altered from the past.  Think of it as a bait and switch "This is what we did every year... until THEY arrived."  This is more dramatic than "We used to do this every year... until THEY arrived."  This sudden negation of the past makes for better drama.


Also, as far as grasses and plants go... my main problem is that people hate redundancy.  Redundancy chaffs people naturally and they don't like it (see what I did there?  ^^).  If you simply must keep a specific reference to grasses you may want to go with something else like "grasses and shrubs."  This way you solve the redundancy problem but give examples of what types of things are being torn up.

Those were the biggest things that were bothering me which were specific.

In regards to the rest: Going for an old man tone is fine, but try to do it by using antiquated words (like... words you remember your grandparents using and nobody else).  Words which do not lend anything to the piece (or lend less than the extra burden of reading them provides) are like dead wood on a tree.  As a general rule it is almost always better to avoid using two words when one will do.  You already do a good job of this, but there are still minor improvements to be made (IMO).

I figured the avoidance of contractions was intentional but I had to ask.  Some people just naturally avoid using them without realizing it (again, I fall into this group).  One thing I would cation is being careful because avoiding contractions can make it much easier to write awkward feeling sentences.  It is very frustrating because technically they are 100% correct and sound, but they still "sound" wrong.

Finally a word of caution.  Yes there are many classics, but they are classics in part because of when they were written.  Any language that is still in common use is a living thing, and resisting that fact does not aid your art.  In fact it can kill it.  Back in the 1930's people talked one way.  If you tried to use ye old English to hold a conversation you would not be taken seriously and probably misunderstood.  The same problem happens trying to use 1930's styling for a modern day audience.

The problem here is that people read for enjoyment, and they are going to read the thing that makes them most comfortable (in the sense of effort put forth to read the work).  They are perfectly willing to pass up any story that seems to be work to read.  This is true even of modern works that take place in a medieval setting: the style is modern and the dialogue is modern.  Instead they throw in the occasional dated word/phrase/observation in order to create the illusion of being authentic to the time period.  That is the path I would suggest you take instead.


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## foozzzball (Aug 29, 2008)

This was Re: Renard. Going to read Kitreshawn's now

I was unaware I was imitating other writers! Could you provide examples? If I'm aping my betters unconsciously I should probably examine what I'm doing right and wrong and generally try and improve.

I'm not so sure about your arguement about using a specific style for effect. It smacks to me of the same kind of arguement behind why women should not write male protagonists, or why men can't write romance. 

As for whether or not something 'natural' to the writer will seem natural to the reader? For all you know I write like that all the time, or none of the time. Perhaps I sat up carefully weighing each word choice over a weekend, or I knocked the thing out in about half an hour and glanced it over once for typos. As a reader you can't actually know that. Quality of the end material doesn't necessarily reflect how hard or easy it was to write, or how strained it was. I'd say it's a dangerous assumption to make.


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## foozzzball (Aug 29, 2008)

For Kitreshawn:

Fighting against societal norms is how you start explaining to the reader that this place, and person, are not what you think they are.

I think the thing is, ultimately, you're coming from the Hemmingway influenced school of thought which prefers tight, uncluttered prose. Which is not my strong point. I believe a fiction writer needs to draw with one hand from formal english and from poetry with the other. Would you be looking for something more like...

'Ainan's hoof was chipped. He broke it yesterday, carrying Dothi's sedan-chair. He'd stumbled. They'd whipped him for it. He sat down the night after to think about what he'd lost. Hadn't stood up yet. Couldn't stand up yet. Still hurt.'

?

Anyway. Yeah, the language grows and changes, but generally that's through dialects becoming common and dying away. The dialects in formal use in the thirties are generally obsolete now, but the fact is a writer should be able to write in multiple dialects. "I love you John." versus "John. I love you." versus "John. I... can't quite say what I mean. But don't go." versus "_John_."

Technically you can argue that's all just different styles of saying the same thing, but ultimately the same is true of something more formally written in pre-war english and something written in post-wars sixties english. In fact, I'd say there's as much difference in the language used between popular writers in the contempory western united states and literary writers on the east coast.

In fact, the old saw from Pretty Woman about being able to tell what district of London someone's from based on how they speak and what grammar they use? It still holds true. The districts are larger now, but walking around town you can pick it up.

As for people reading for enjoyment... I also happen to write for enjoyment. So on the one hand I want to write something that appeals to me, and on the other I want to write something that appeals to a larger audience. And I need to balance that out, it's true.


Ps.

Instead they throw in the occasional dated word/phrase/observation in order to create the illusion of being authentic to the time period. That is the path I would suggest you take instead. <--- I hate this. When fantasy authors do it I come across all red-eyed! It is a personal bugbear. Once or twice I've caught myself doing it and I was absolutely disappointed in myself.


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## Shouden (Aug 29, 2008)

foozzzball said:


> It smacks to me of the same kind of arguement behind why women should not write male protagonists, or why men can't write romance.



First of all: "It smacks to me"? What the hell kind of...you know what, whatever you aren't going to listen to me much anyways.

Secondly: I think it is supposed to be that men shouldn't write female protagonists. (guys, you shouldn't write something you don't understand, and let's face it, we don't understand women.) and women shouldn't write romance. (Damn! Those sex scene can get a little too steamy.) 

Then again, I write female protagonists all the time. So...what do I know?


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## Shouden (Aug 29, 2008)

fooz, I think what we are trying to say is that the little bit of story that you have...it doesn't flow very smoothly. And if you have it like that over the entire 1000 words, that would give me a headache personally. Like I said before, it's alright to slow down the story and spread out the details a little, but to have them scattered over a thousand words, you start to loose details and eventually the reader.

Picture it like this:
The story is like a plane wreck. Now, to the observer/reader, they are going to be looking for evidence of a plane if you call it a plane wreck. Now, if the pieces are scattered over miles and miles, then that means the plane was more than likely obliterated and one will kind  of then pic through the debris for maybe the black box and a couple other details. But if the wreck is condensed to a much  smaller area, say several hundred feet, then you are left with sizable chunks of the fuselage or a wing or something that one could take a look at and maybe even determine the cause of the crash.

Now, if were writing a 1000 page book, then 1000 words is nothing. but, when you all you have is 1000 words to play with, you may consider allowing the story to flow a little smoother and quicker.


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 29, 2008)

I'll give a few examples of what I think doesn't work, then, and maybe you can go from there.



> The head wife, old Humi, she knew the way as well as Ainan.


Don't splice commas.  This sounds a lot more Yoda and a lot less what you want it to sound like.  "The head wife, old Humi: she knew...." would be much better.



> ...left the good grasses to grow freely and well.


As opposed to confined and terribly?  The 'freely and well' seems a mite unnecessary.



> He and his children had eaten of that earth, had never gone hungry.


Now it sounds like they're eating dirt.  Did you mean 'eaten from that earth'?



> Not his earth. The earth that belonged to the noble squirrel lord


First off, a Lord is a kind of noble, so it's redundant.  Second of all, it's a little hard to take that particular phraseology seriously.  Probably would have been better for this piece to throw in a little Latin: 'that bushy-tailed lord of the sciuridae', or something like that.



> The squirrels, they thought one must eat only at dawn and dusk. That they must not touch the earth, that all such things led into filth and depravity


The squirrels who are also quite fond of burying their nuts... in the earth.  Perhaps reconsider this aspect of them, or make it a different species.



> The ones who were free in heart.


ClichÃ© alert.  Find an alternative to 'free in heart'.

Among maybe a few others that I missed.  Usually problems with style are a collection of small errors that point out to the reader, 'hey, this guy doesn't quite know what he's doing'.  That breaks the whole illusion of this being a piece of literature.
Mostly I said what I did about your style because I like reading your spontaneous posts a lot more than I liked reading this piece you wrote.  I think your work would be a hell of a lot more enjoyable if you went with what you know now, rather than what you're going to have to learn more about in the future.  By all means, keep trying it this way, but don't expect anything incredible to come out for a very long time.  Maybe decades.  Else hope to the gods you can find an editor who's willing to really work with you on this... but that's not something you can count on.


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## foozzzball (Aug 29, 2008)

Mmmm. Your desire to use colons makes me scratch my head. 'Old Humi' is a clarifying statement, paranthetical, clarifying that she is the head wife. Yoda-isms are messing around with subject-verb-object order. 'Joe Ran to the farmhouse' as opposed to 'To the farmhouse, Joe ran'. Anyway. Have to disagree with you on this one, though I do have commaitis and need to clean it up.

Freely and well? I've already defended this earlier. The 'are they eating dirt' thing is, also, somewhat intentional - the level of connection here needs to be blurry. From a rational perspective, obviously they're not eating dirt. From an emotional perspective, they are definitely having some kind of connection with the earth there.

Redundancy is a valid rhetorical device, squirrel is a clearer word which I would have expected you to be rooting for! And squirrels may be fond of burying their caches in the ground, but a really rich squirrel - who had other squirrels to go get food for them - could theoretically stay in a tree indefinitely and hence be safe from predation. Keep that in mind.

Also, clichÃ©s have their uses. It's a short sharp poke to the nose that - while potentially dilute - has a very clear meaning. I'm hanging onto this one, and I'm not even sure I agree it's a clichÃ©. In a quick web search 'Free in heart' appears 3310 times, 'free at heart' 2160 times, according to mister google. On the other hand 'avoid it like the plague' shows up a hundred and six thousand times. I'm not sure this would actually count as a clichÃ©. (Granted, though, 'free heart' appears three hundred and three thousand times.)

Otherwise, I tend to vary my style a lot from piece to piece. I write a lot of science fiction, not much fantasy. My science fiction reads differently although, typically, I keep to a very close third person perspective. I'm working on fantasy, and a different style for it, because I happen to want to. If it doesn't work for you, doesn't work for you. I'll keep working at it, maybe I'll succeed in getting it to start working for you later on. As you say, it does take work.


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 29, 2008)

> Your desire to use colons makes me scratch my head. 'Old Humi' is a clarifying statement, paranthetical, clarifying that she is the head wife.


You'd be right if you didn't add the 'she' right afterwards.  Otherwise then you have two subjects ('the head wife' and 'she') and it's a comma splice.  The colon fixes that problem, or you could remove the 'she' if you'd like.  Either way.


> The 'are they eating dirt' thing is, also, somewhat intentional


Only somewhat?


> Redundancy is a valid rhetorical device


If you're using it as such, sure.  It just sounded more like a mistake in your piece, is all.  You read The Elements of Style, right?  Omit needless words.


> And squirrels may be fond of burying their caches in the ground, but a really rich squirrel - who had other squirrels to go get food for them - could theoretically stay in a tree indefinitely and hence be safe from predation. Keep that in mind.


That's a bit of a stretch, though.  I'm not exactly sure if there's some super high purpose for using a squirrel in the first place.  If there is, it's not obvious, and the fact that you feel a need to go quite the distance to come up with a reason it makes sense just tells me that there might be a better choice than a squirrel for this.  Really.. it would only require changing about 5 words in the whole thing if you did so.


> Also, clichÃ©s have their uses


If you use them creatively.  This is just using it exactly like it was used the first time.  It would just be more interesting if you came up with something more original.


> (Granted, though, 'free heart' appears three hundred and three thousand times.)


Exactly.

As for style, we'll just accept that I'm from the Stephen King school of writing like a construction worker, and you desire something higher than that.  In which case, we'll let the subject drop.


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## CraskWolf (Aug 30, 2008)

Pro-Tip: If you ask for savage criticism, don't have a go at your reviewers, and force them into some kind of "grammar battle". Take it with good grace, you don't have to listen to it, but it's best not to alienate your most educated readers. Seems a lot of these people won't be interested in giving you criticism again.

Just a thought.


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## foozzzball (Aug 30, 2008)

M. Le Renard:

Only somewhat intentional, I say, because I cannot clearly recall writing the phrase. Some parts I look at and I go, 'ah yes, I recall musing over what to write about his hooves and teeth'. Some parts I look at and I go 'hmm, why did I write this? Let me figure that out and see if I still agree with myself.'

Elements of style's style guidelines tend to apply more to formal writing than to prose. If you wanted to call me on something from it I would've gone with the slightly later point two from 'an approach to style', which would have been useful in earlier discussion! It even says 'But do not assume that because you have acted naturally your product is without flaw.'

As for squirrels, now we'd be getting into infodump territory. The society that's doing the enslaving here is a large agrarian society of rodents. They were the first to develop agriculture, and hence cities - the horses can be seen to be starting along the rudiments of it, if you think about the whole wives pruning the greenery issue. Along with cities we have fairly large religions developing. As religions will, they deal with issues of mortality and immortality. At some point it was determined that filth - literal dirt, spilled blood, bad personal habits, unclean language - is something of 'mortality'. When you die, you are buried. When you are born, you are covered in blood - and young children are very prone to dying. So, when your child is born you clean them as fast as you can in hopes of 'getting rid' of that mortality. So, as kings have a tendancy to try and be immortal, they will not let themselves become mired in filth. God commands it. Now whether their God actually did come along and and command this, or if it was just because some 'noble' at some point observed that farmers are all full of dirt and the upper crust were not, that's up for interpretation. All Ainan really knows about it is that if he drops the sedan chair and the squirrel happens to touch the ground, he's not just getting whipped but executed.

Sorry, I like rambling about that.  But if you've got some candidate for royalty out of the family rodentia you'd like to suggest, by all means.  One of the reasons I picked squirrels was the disbelief people react with when I tell them 'yes, the largest and most dangerous nation in this area is run by squirrels.' 'What, that's not right!' Which is appropriate because in the context of the larger story I'm using the setting for it isn't right.

Otherwise... yeah. I don't really consider myself from any one school of writing. Like I said, I tend to vary it based on what I'm writing. (And 'On Writing' is just bloody excellent. I haven't owned a copy in years, though. Pesky 'oh, can I borrow this?' friends.)



CraskWolf:

Strictly speaking I was invited to throw something up here for people to rip at. Otherwise, I agree with them where I agree with them and disagree with them where I disagree with them. By getting into a 'grammar battle' I'm forced to examine and evaluate my assumptions. If I just gracefully take what I've been told and discard it because I disagree with it, rather than figure out why I disagree with it, I'm hardly going to learn anything. 

Whether or not people get alienated, well I'm not going to get myself too worked up about that. When people start going into the heart of someone's writing with a knife it is nasty, from both ends. Just because it's nasty doesn't mean you shouldn't do it wholeheartedly from time to time.

If everyone just gracefully went around here going 'Oh yes you know that's excellent advice but I shan't use it' without any fuss, those giving out the advice do not actually have any arguments for or against it. So in a sense, hopefully, those arming and disarming me will hopefully have a clearer idea why they feel that commas need to be erased here, and I will have a clearer idea of why I feel that commas must be inserted there.

I'm hardly going to say that this is all polite fun and games where we're all going to be bloody happy with each other at the end of it. Hell no. But as far as I'm concerned, making friends isn't really the point here. Friends might - and do - look at your writing and kindly ignore the minor issues that should be brought to your attention. (Even if you don't think they're issues, knowing that other people do is essential.)


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## Shouden (Aug 30, 2008)

foozzzball said:


> When people start going into the heart of someone's writing with a knife it is nasty, from both ends.




You would know a lot about that wouldn't you, fooz? Try not to be too hypocritical. If you can't stand the fire, don't light the match.

BTW, this is my last comment to anything of yours. You opted to stay out of my writing, and I will gracefully stay out of yours. Truce.


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## Poetigress (Aug 30, 2008)

foozzzball said:


> If everyone just gracefully went around here going 'Oh yes you know that's excellent advice but I shan't use it' without any fuss, those giving out the advice do not actually have any arguments for or against it. So in a sense, hopefully, those arming and disarming me will hopefully have a clearer idea why they feel that commas need to be erased here, and I will have a clearer idea of why I feel that commas must be inserted there.



If that's the way you want to approach critique, that's fine.  But in my understanding, critique isn't about making your critiquers defend their reaction to your work or debate whether they're right or wrong.  You asked for reactions, you got them, and it's your business what you change or don't change, but frankly, it strikes me as somewhat rude to then come back and argue every single point with everyone who's provided a critique.  Asking for clarification is fine, saying "Yes, I had a reason for that, but I'll take another look" is diplomatic, but saying "well, this is why I did it that way" for everything eventually starts to make any critiquer feel like he's wasted his time.

Admittedly, I don't have the patience or time this morning to go back through every post to be sure, but as I've watched this thread develop I also don't recall seeing you explicitly thank any of these readers who've taken the time to go through the piece, sometimes line by line. If that's the case, it's no wonder some of these people might be getting a little irritated.

Based on all your rebuttals, it looks to me as if you have a reason for why every single thing in this piece is the way it is, so I think you probably should have chosen something else to put up for "savage criticism" that wasn't so set in stone.


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 30, 2008)

> but saying "well, this is why I did it that way" for everything eventually starts to make any critiquer feel like he's wasted his time.


I'm getting to this point, actually, so I'm going to stop.  At least I got you to concede one point (I think; you didn't mention it again).
You can be proud of your piece, sure... just don't do this kind of thing to a professional editor when you get the chance to work with one.  They're busy people, and if they find you insufferable, they'll eventually just cut off the whole deal.


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## TakeWalker (Aug 30, 2008)

While I have to agree with Poetigress about your reaction so far, let me butt in just to say:



foozzzball said:


> 'Ainan's hoof was chipped. He broke it yesterday, carrying Dothi's sedan-chair. He'd stumbled. They'd whipped him for it. He sat down the night after to think about what he'd lost. Hadn't stood up yet. Couldn't stand up yet. Still hurt.'



This is some brilliant mimicry.


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## foozzzball (Aug 30, 2008)

I've spent a lot of this afternoon staring at an empty edit box trying to figure out how best to get my foot out of my mouth.

I think Poetigress's advice is probably the most pertinent and significant lesson I should take home from this thread. While I sit firm in where I disagree and why, I, should. Probably have been a hell of a lot more appreciative of the time you guys took, et al.

I would come up with excuses, but, you know how excuses are. I probably shouldn't have posted in the first place, though.

I do apoligise, though, since it really should've occured to me that it does take time and effort to go over other people's work and even if I disagree it _is_ useful to me and I should be more appreciative than I've been.

Anyhow. My foot's in my mouth and I don't see myself getting it out any time soon, so let me just blithely carry on with this post.



On professional editors; typically speaking I take the view that if someone is paying me for something I am working for them, hence, if they want to publish something of mine that they've made look like tripe as far as I'm concerned... they know their market and what they want. It's not my business to tell them what they want. When I'm writing on my own time, however... Yeah.

It is heartbreaking, though. I'm not going to deny that. I've done some for the love stuff, and a _little_ paying stuff. The for the love stuff didn't require any editting - lazy editors maybe. One of the paying gigs needed some hunks - large, bleeding hunks - removed. Ultimately it did make the story fit their readership better, but I miss them so.


As for mimicry... Thank you. Apparently I do it a lot, so I should be pretty good.


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