# First timer



## xiath (Oct 6, 2008)

Well, as the title says, I am a first timer to the writing world and would like some general critiquing on something that I have been working on for the past few nights.  All that I ask for is, generally speaking, how is it?  I am not asking for every error to be corrected, mainly just any major issues.  I am sorry if it is littered with mistake after mistake.  I have read through it about five times in my head and I think twice aloud, but I am extrememly ignorant when it comes to anything grammatical because throughout my whole life, I hated writing to the point to where I actually tried to break my hand so I would not have to write and I have never paid attention in English class and I am really regretting it today.  So, sadly, I would say that I am way behind from where I should be with my knowlage of grammar, which should be at an eleventh grade level...  So I guess the main reason for me asking this is to to find my weak points and address them first so I will be ready for collage, since it is so close.  

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1606275/

Oh, and can I ask you to please tell me what books are good reads?  I have also gone through my life hating reading and I believe that reading well written books can only help when writing because if you see it or hear it enough, you will remember it.  The only books that I have actually read fully, other then children's books, are first two books of the inheritance (I think that is what it is, you know, Eragon >.< *shudders*), and recently, A Tale of Two Cites and Cireno de Beserac (I do not remember the spelling so please forgive me).  I want to put my library cards to good use and picking up a stack of good books to read over the week has been sounding like a good idea recently.

Any ounce of help will be well appreciated.

Edit:  Whoa o.0, I guess I really like commas in my stories...  What a horrible mess...


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## GatodeCafe (Oct 6, 2008)

As far as piece goes, for a first timer, it's actually pretty good. I might give you a more in-depth analysis later, but I'm dog tired boss. 

It might not be your cup of tea, but if you're into really, really good writing, I would recommend the following books:

Extremely loud and incredibly close by Jonathan Safran Foer - just plain good
God is Dead by Ron Currie Jr. -will make you think
Against the Day by Thomas Pyncon - good, but also very long
Villa Incognito by Tom Robbins - hilarious, and it's got a furry on it who uses his scrotum as a parachute
Londonstani by gautam malkani - sort of like extremely loud and incredibly close from a british point of view
Beneath the Underdog by charles mingus - the best autobiography I ever read
Queer by william S. Burroughs - a classic. Drugs and gay sex=win.

Just look 'em up, it's some really solid literature. Gnite boss.


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## ScottyDM (Oct 6, 2008)

xiath said:


> ... throughout my whole life, I hated writing to the point to where I actually tried to break my hand so I would not have to write...


That's extreme.


For someone who used to hate to write, not bad. Most of the basics are there. In my opinion fiction is the most challenging form of writing imaginable. You need to master a larger set of skills than any other form of writing. Still, it's doable. Learn to write fiction tolerably well and you can write anything.


You're writing in third-person past-tense, one of my favorites. And you're _not_ head hopping. Huzzah! My criticism is that your narration seems distant.

I like to think of the narrator as being the camera in a movie. What does the camera see (describe to the reader)? You can move the camera around and in this scene the camera seems to be back a good 30 or 40 feet from the characters. There are a couple of places you use a closer POV language, but as you never sustain that I get the feeling it's an error. The camera is so distant that we never learn any names but the villain's name (at least I think Trez-aman is the villain).

Perhaps this is the correct approach for this story. If the "lanky old fox" is unimportant, a throwaway character, then stay distant. The story is titled _Trez-aman_, but it seems you've killed your title character at the end of the first scene. So my impression is the story is over and since I never got to know any of the characters because of your distant "camera work" I don't really care.

This gets back to when to open a story and how. Perhaps you don't need this chapter, impossible to tell unless I read more. Trez-aman must not be dead, or he comes back. And where does that leave your unnamed characters?

Let's say for the sake of argument that the "lanky old fox" is important. I'd say open with your wide-angle shot, then by the third paragraph move the camera until it is perched on Mr. Lanky's shoulder. Stay in third person, but let the camera see what Lanky sees, hear what he hears, etc. Get into Mr. Lanky's thoughts and motivations as to why he is out there. You probably shouldn't get into it too much in this scene, but give us a clue, make it personal, give us a reason to care about him and the surviving soldier.

Oh yea, _give them names!_ Nothing says "crowd scene extras" to a reader like a group of nameless characters. If you don't care about these characters then why should we? Also, in the ranking of unobtrusive narration tricks--to let the narrator vanish from the reader's mind so they _experience_ the story--how the narrator refers to characters is important. Personal pronouns are very nearly invisible (he, she, etc.); the name, if short, is next; after that comes long names or full names; and worst of all are descriptive tags, such as "lanky old fox." A pretty reasonable rule of thumb is never use a descriptive tag for any given character more than once per scene--and less is better.

Sometimes tight point-of-view (POV) can be tricky. The usual error is that the author gets into everyone's head in the scene. While that is a writing style, my personal opinion is that it sucks and it confuses the heck out of the reader. So get into Mr. Lanky's head and stay there (if being in his head is appropriate).

In your sixth paragraph you wrote: "The air seemed to get thicker and felt like it was trying to choke the foxes..." This is a POV slip. It felt like this to whom? The foxes? Well... yea, the foxes. But these are nameless foxes that the camera doesn't love and isn't intimate with, which is why I call this a POV error. Also it's an error because you're attributing this feeling to all the foxes. Show us how one fox feels and we'll infer the rest.


There aren't too many grammatical errors. The major annoyance is you've got waaaaaaay too many words. It's almost as if you've run your scene through the "Text Enhancement Program of Writing Improvement" created by "The Department of Redundancy Department" (I just made that up, so don't ask for a URL).

I'm in my fifties and I remember when I was a kid and Hugh Hefner said, "Less is more." I like Playboy bunnies, but I thought that statement by the Hef was stupid. But when it comes to writing, he's got something. Less is more! Make every word count and toss out those that don't.

Let's look at your first paragraph. What's right with it is that it's descriptive. What's wrong with it is that it's way too long for a first paragraph where nothing happens. Yea, it sets the stage, but it needs to be shorter, even at the expense of dumping some of your deliciously creepy atmosphere. Get the reader into relevant action as soon as practical. Another creep out approach is to put us into the head of one of the characters, but Mr. Lanky is probably too cool to let a few shadows bother him. You can't use "young fox of about the age of eighteen" because you kill him, and it's bad form to kill your POV character in the middle of a scene--kinda brings the scene to a halt.



> The air was cool and thick.


Good.



> A hostile silence roamed through the forest, accompanied by a cold, dark, smell which radiated from the damp ground and the damp bark upon the trees.


Ummm, wait a moment. Silence is hostile? It can roam? Sorry, you just threw me out of the story as I pondered these imponderables. The goal of the narration should be to pull the reader into the story such that they experience it, not cogitate upon your choice of metaphors. Also, you use "damp" twice, and you use "damp" two more times in this paragraph. Perhaps a touch better description in your opening sentence would give the reader the distinct impression the whole dang forest is damp--then you could spare them the histrionics of having to lard your prose with "damp".



> Still and unwavering, as if frozen in time, loomed the trees of the forest, watching every movement throughout the forest.


My initial impression of this sentence was, "Oh, Lord, spare me." Okay, so there is no breeze, let's jump straight into looming trees and be done with it. Also trees don't watch unless they are magical trees.



> A vast river of damp leaves lay upon the cold, damp ground.


Damp leaves on the damp ground. It's too damp much! Also it is a "vast river"? I've been in a forest where the trees were so tall and thick that at noon you got the distinct impression the sun had set a half-hour earlier, and the place never dried out. There were no "vast rivers" of leaves, but a thick cushion of rot. A thick spongy mass with leaves on top, dirt somewhere below, and fungal mat of organic mulch between. You could _smell_ it, rich and sweet.



> Short, dense shrubs grew between the trees, each seemingly withholding its own secrets.


If the trees are dense, not a heck of a lot will grow beneath them. Then I feel "withholding" is not the best verb in this case. Perhaps "keeping" their secrets. But consider just cutting this sentence.



> Faintly shining through the tree tops in feeble streams, was the faint glow of moonlight, giving the forest a grim blue hue.


Faintly feeble faint it too dang many "F" words. Keep one, kill the rest. Personally I like "feeble". What do you think of: "The moon glowed through the treetops in feeble streams, giving the forest a grim blueness."



> Cast upon the ground by the trees where shadows of the darkest shade of black, each seemingly a bottomless pit, waiting for the opportunity to swallow any soul who dare wander into their cold, dark, grasp.


This is a seriously WTF sort of sentence. Black doesn't get any darker than black except in comedic sci-fi such as the _Hitchhiker's Guide_. Also more cold and dark. Damn, it's night and the trees are thick. Enough with the dark darkness of the blackest shade of blackness already! I mean, WTF?



> Then the silence of the forest was broken with a faint rustling and crunching of leaves, it was the sound of footsteps of a group of foxen soldiers, leaded by a lanky old fox.


Yaaay, action! Okay, logical error: damp leaves don't crunch. You have to decide, are these leaves damp, or do they crunch? Rustling is okay though. Foxen isn't a real word, but I get it. Vulpine is a real word that means what you mean, but how many have heard that word? Choose your poison. Oh, "leaded" is not a word. The past tense of "lead" is "led", honest! I have an computerized dictionary and I keep it open every moment I'm writing. It looks up words as fast as I can type them in, tells me all the forms, has a style guide, and an awesome integrated thesaurus.

Let's talk about your opening again. People "collect" these things. That is, a really good opening sentence or paragraph is remembered, talked about, even memorized. People decide to keep reading or quit, based on their first few seconds impression. Openings need to sizzle!


More lard. Let's talk adverbs and adjectives. Adverbs are supposed to make verbs better, and adjectives are supposed to do the same with nouns, but too many just end up making a mess. Most people don't think about these "ad-thingies" unless you misuse them, but ad-thingies ending in "LY" kinda pop out at the reader in a bad way. So minimize ad-thingies of all types, but concentrate on the "LY" ad-thingies.

There are several ways to use adverbs and adjectives, most of them useless. For example if the adverb contradicts the verb--that is you try to flip the meaning of the verb--that's bad. I can never think of an example when I want one, and I rarely see them, but take my word, contradiction is terrible.

If an ad-thingies is redundant to the noun or verb it modifies, it's useless. Examples are "dark black" and "daily sunset". Dump them!

Another useless ad-thingy is one that attempts to modify a weak noun or verb when there's a much better noun or verb that you could use instead. Here's an example. You wrote: "With a start, the group turned around quickly, but there was no sign of the young fox." Change "turned around quickly" to "spun around". See, it's easy, and better!

Adverbs and adjectives are useful only when they boost an already excellent verb or noun. This goes double for "LY" ad-thingies. If it doesn't boost an already excellent word, just delete the dang thing. I promise, no one will miss it.

It's a pretty safe rule of thumb to never use an "LY" adverb to try to boost "said". This particular use is known as a Tom Swiftly, after the hero of a series of a pulp sci-fi series for boys from the early 20th century. An example: "'Nuclear energy is the future,' Tom said, glowingly." Just say "said" and be done with it 90% of the time. The other 10% you can "ask" or "shout" or "whisper". Hit the thesaurus if you must. But there is one exception: I've never found a satisfactory replacement for "said quietly," a whisper is something else.

I suggest that after another editing pass that you print your story and then use a Hi-Liter to mark all the "LY"s that belong to adverbs and adjectives. Stare at the page. See all the yellow? Your job will be to get rid of most of those. A good goal is to shoot for no more than one for every thousand words or so.


Let's hit a few more examples of unnecessary verbiage.


> â€œI donâ€™t think he is here.â€ moaned a young fox of about the age of eighteen, adorned in a light soldiers outfit, mainly made of thick leather.


First, comma at the end of the dialog because what comes later is part of the same sentence. "About the age of eighteen"? Maybe if the narrator is so distant he can only guess, but the character either is 18 or he's 17 or even 19. Just say it. "Mainly made of thick leather." Again, don't be so wishy-washy, just say it. Then what is a "light soldier"? Does that mean lightly armed? The good news is that when your fox "moaned" instead of "said" it worked for me.



> His voice was deep, and was adorned with lighter wear then the rest of the group, mainly of cloth, and wore a dagger which had a handle which looked to be made of gold and was sheathed in a sheath that was well adorned with gems and gold. He also wore a brown hooded cloak, concealing his eyes.


Hmmm, where to start? Well... the deep voice should go in the previous sentence. Next, "lighter wear" could be "He wore no leather armor like the others, but a cloak..." etc. Again the distant narrator doesn't seem to have a clue what this character is wearing. The dagger is either made of gold or it's made of something else. Decide. The narrator in a third-person story is usually supposed to be omniscient--all knowing. And the narrator is not supposed to lie to the reader--that's what characters are for. Many readers assume the narrator _is_ the author--so do you the author know what the heck is going on or not? Wishy-washy writing is a waste of time and satisfies no one. Then "sheathed in a sheath" sucks. Aww heck, let me try: "He wore no leather armor, as did the others, but a brown hooded cloak that hid his eyes. On his hip was a dagger with a gold handle and a bejeweled hilt." A little rough, but you get the idea. KISS.



> Slowly, the group started to make a circle with their back on the inside of the circle and their faces faced the outside circumference of the circle.


Try something simple like: "Slowly the group backed into a circle, each man facing outward with weapon drawn." Okay, "man"? Technically "dog fox" but in your anthro society what do the males call each other? Also I messed with the original by adding that bit about them drawing their weapons. They would do this at some point and I don't remember you'd touched on that detail. They touched their hilts, but I don't remember them drawing their swords.

You had waaaay too much "frozen in fear", and yet they still moved!

I don't know how else to impart this to you other than rewriting the whole thing, and I don't like rewriting other author's stuff except as brief examples. It'd be pretty easy to dump 20% of your words without changing the story.

I will leave you with this thought. Sol Stein, professional editor for many years, wrote a book about writing fiction. He wrote: "One plus one equals one-half." The concept is that by adding unnecessary words you lessen the value of the whole.

Too many words is your biggest problem. I'd work on that.


Suggestions for novels? Hmmm, how about writing resources instead.

First, a critique group will blast your writing into orbit. I'm a member of Critique Circle and I recommend them.

A couple of years ago one of the members of Critique Circle created an online tool she calls AutoCrit, which flags problems like redundancy, overused word forms, etc. The free stuff is the most useful. After awhile you see this stuff, but until then spending some time on that site is helpful.

You can read your work aloud. That will find redundancies and clumsy wording.

The Chicago Manual of Style is considered the bible of grammar and writing style in the USA. It's not sexy and it's expensive, but it covers the basics. The real problem is that it isn't for fiction and there are many things you'll run into writing fiction that's not covered.

The Deluxe Transitive Vampire looks like a "sexy" grammar book, but I've no idea if it covers the special grammar needs of fiction. It's supposed to be fun to read.

I've not read this, but I've heard good things about it. Eats, Shoots & Leaves is supposed to be the hot thing for punctuation.

I do have Sin and Syntax and it's full of awesome, although not a general grammar book. It is tuned to the needs of a novelist. I seem to have misplaced it. Rats.

I have read Mother Miller's How to Write Good Book and I think it's a pretty decent book for beginners. It's aimed specifically at budding novelists, but it takes a kind of scattershot approach and covers a bit of everything.

Self Editing for Fiction Writers is hot! This book is focused on what you do once you have a complete manuscript and it's in pretty decent shape. This book will help you refine your prose and give it sparkle. The authors' website, where you can find a sample chapter and a bunch of free essays on the craft of writing. All that stuff they skipped in the general-purpose grammar books is covered in this (among many other subjects), but this book is not a substitute for a GP grammar book. So one of each.

Stein on Writing (mentioned earlier). This book is a bit like the graduate level of Mother Miller's book. A scattershot approach, but in far more depth. I found it invaluable for learning how to become a storyteller and have read it through at least 3 times.

Writing the Breakout Novel is about storytelling. Maass is an agent who has analyzed why some novels seem to takeoff in sales. Part of that is luck, but part is based on finding resonance with the readers, what seems to turn them on.

Speaking of finding a resonance with readers, Joseph Campbell has spent a lifetime studying mythology and why some story types have endured for millennia. Campbell's work was the influence George Lucas cited for Star Wars. Some of Campbell's better-known works are The Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth.

Campbell's work is fascinating, but it's not focused on creating a story. Vogler has taken Campbell's ideas and written a book for screenwriters and other storytellers called The Writers Journey, which covers how mythology works and how to create a story. All of which brings us back around to the books by Maass and Stein. This may seem like a formula, but so is food. The human body is tuned to like certain types of food--a balance of carbs, protein, and fats. Within that "formula" is an infinite variety of cuisines and foods. We don't eat plumber's putty because it isn't the right stuff, so why write the equivalent of plumber's putty and expect many people to read it?

Speaking of all that, The Serpent and the Swan is a darn fascinating book. A sort of "mini-Campbellesque" book about the animal bride. There's a reason we are furries, it's because this sort of thing is encoded into the human brain. Also, animal bride stories have shifted as mankind's relationship with the natural world has shifted. If you're fascinated with animal bride stories (_The Little Mermaid_, _Beauty and the Beast_, _Splash_ {movie}, native American tales, Japanese kitsune stories, and more) then you'll probably enjoy this book and it could help you to create a modern animal bride tale that really grabs the imagination. Like Campbell, more theory than practical.

Techniques of the Selling Writer is fantastic for getting your story ideas into scenes and what he calls "motivation reaction units". The middle ground between plot and paragraphs. Your big paragraph near the end of _Trez-aman_ is really a mess (it needs to be split up) and the techniques in this book could help you straighten it out. I don't know why Amazon has it listed for so much, I think I paid $12 new when I got my copy. Perhaps that's the hardcover price.

I haven't done much more than poke at my copy of it, but I've heard good things about Getting into Character. I remember that what little I have read was pretty helpful. Maybe I should finish reading this.

Published author Holly Lisle has a bunch of useful essays on the craft of writing. She even has a free e-book on the subject called Mugging the Muse. It's a bit of a jumble, sort of like Mother Miller's book (but bigger) or like Stein's book (but messier). I have read vast chunks of this and it's worth a download at least.


Hope you found at least some of this helpful.

Scotty


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## xiath (Oct 6, 2008)

I can not thank you enough for that post Scotty.  It was filled with so much information.  I have heard the phrase "less is more", but I never really thought of it until you brought it up in your post.  I understand now after going over my chapter again, that there are too many useless words in there.  

I am sorry about any confusion with the story title.  It actually does not have a title as of yet and the title on that page is the title of the chapter.  I suppose I should give the story a title.


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## ScottyDM (Oct 6, 2008)

xiath said:


> I am sorry about any confusion with the story title.  It actually does not have a title as of yet and the title on that page is the title of the chapter.  I suppose I should give the story a title.


It's a work in progress, so don't worry about it. I assumed the title was significant (my bad) and that made me think that Trez-aman was the central character. Then you kill him. :shock: Hee hee. :-D 

You're doing several things correct by instinct, so keep it up. Maybe try to figure out why you're doing what you're doing is correct so you don't drift out of doing it the correct way into something else. But the word thing needs the most work. Seeing it is most of the battle.

I want to see your next draft.

Scotty

PS: Christmas is coming up. Maybe someone could get you some of those books.


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