# Human



## Larry (Oct 3, 2009)

Finally, it's posted. I have been working on my Human story for quite awhile, now. Writing it, editing it, and all that. But now, I finally finished some of the work. 

  What I have recently posted is a story titled Human. It's about black wolf named Edward, living in NYC who thinks that his life couldn't be more amazing than it is right now, until he discovers a creature that is said to be dangerous to furkind. Edward doesn't know that his life could be amazing than ever before. He will face ups and downs, but no matter what happens, the truth about everything that he or anyone else in the world can't know will be discovered by Edward only. Unless the CWO has anything to say about it...

  When I first "pitched my story and others" in the summer, I was criticized because of some misspelling in only one post. Somehow I felt offended about it, even though sometimes I don't pay attention to the screen and look at my fingers. I remember one user who nitpicked at me because of that misspelling, saying that I should look through my story before I post and that I should be serious on my writing. I misspelled "story" as "sotry".

  It's not that I'm angry at that user, but I felt that he was a little harsh on me. And that's what kept me motivated. So, really I would like to say thanks to the user, wherever you are.

  Months before, I posted a pilot of Human, titled Human pt. 1. My new and improved story will be in volumes and chapters. As of now, I have posted Vol.1 Ch.1 and Ch.2. I will post a link of my userpage. You will have to download it, because it's really hard for me to post and read it without having to download. Please tell me what you think of my story. Be honest, please. Thank you.

~sirleafjr


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## Morroke (Oct 3, 2009)

larry669 said:


> black wolf named Edward



Wow hey, I stopped reading right there.


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## Ibuuyk (Oct 3, 2009)

Thats good & all, but shouldnt you be posting this in either Tutorials & Critiques or The Writer's Bloc?


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## Dass (Oct 3, 2009)

Morroke said:


> Wow hey, I stopped reading right there.



That really is an unfortunate cooincidence.


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## Dahguns (Oct 3, 2009)

You shouldn't feel bad at all about anything....remember what forum your posting on.


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## Attaman (Oct 3, 2009)

Morroke said:


> Wow hey, I stopped reading right there.


You should keep going.  The story is about a Furry Wolf named Edward who finds a human female named Angel (that happens to be on the wrong planet!) and she turns out to be the greatest weapon of Furrykind against the Crossworld Organization (which, while I haven't read the story, I will guess is 99%-or-more human run).  Sounds terrif, right?


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## Benny the Horned Rabbit (Oct 4, 2009)

Attaman said:


> Crossworld Organization (which, while I haven't read the story, I will guess is 99%-or-more human run).


 
Ten Bucks says they take the form of big ugly trolls.


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 4, 2009)

> As of now, I have posted Vol.1 Ch.1 and Ch.2. I will post a link of my userpage.


A link would be helpful, yes.


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## Volpino (Oct 4, 2009)

Bummer of birthmark, Hal... I mean, the black wolf named Edward is almost humorous. But then again, Frodo was originally Bingo, Merry was Marmaduke, and Aragorn was Trotter...

I'd be happy to read it. Give me a few days to get caught up on my reading. I always assumed this was mostly an art site. I didn't realize there were so many writers here. =)


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## Larry (Oct 4, 2009)

M. Le Renard said:


> A link would be helpful, yes.


OMG, I'm so sorry. Here's the link:
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/larry669/
Just check my gallery.


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## Atrak (Oct 4, 2009)

Morroke said:


> Wow hey, I stopped reading right there.



Guys, I know he said he likes criticism, but that's not even criticism. That's just being a jerk. Tell him WHY you stopped there, and it'll become criticism. Rude, yes, but at least criticism.

Larry, I'm guessing English isn't your first language. I really hope it isn't, because your grammar is horrible. You didn't misspell anything, but you missed verbs, capitalized in the wrong places, and the thing as a whole made my grammatical mind shudder. You should write in your own language, and then find someone who really knows how to speak and write in English as well as your own language, and have them translate for you.
Other than that, my only big concerns are the writing style and length. If English is not your first language, you might be able to excuse yourself from the former, but the latter is inexcusable. 338 words for a chapter? I'm sorry, but I don't consider half a page as a chapter. Please work on lengthening this to at least five pages with size 12 font. Otherwise, your entire series will be the length of a short story.


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## Larry (Oct 4, 2009)

atrakaj said:


> Guys, I know he said he likes criticism, but that's not even criticism. That's just being a jerk. Tell him WHY you stopped there, and it'll become criticism. Rude, yes, but at least criticism.
> 
> Larry, I'm guessing English isn't your first language. I really hope it isn't, because your grammar is horrible. You didn't misspell anything, but you missed verbs, capitalized in the wrong places, and the thing as a whole made my grammatical mind shudder. You should write in your own language, and then find someone who really knows how to speak and write in English as well as your own language, and have them translate for you.
> Other than that, my only big concerns are the writing style and length. If English is not your first language, you might be able to excuse yourself from the former, but the latter is inexcusable. 338 words for a chapter? I'm sorry, but I don't consider half a page as a chapter. Please work on lengthening this to at least five pages with size 12 font. Otherwise, your entire series will be the length of a short story.


 
Actually, I was born here in America, but with African-American parents. I don't have an African accent or learned any other languages but English since I was born. I speak it very well, and no one corrects me. I don't understand how my grammar is incorrect. I don't see any miscapitalization in my post, but I would like it if you point them out for me. I totally understand about the length of the first chapter. I also didn't like the length of the chapter, but there really wasn't any time to stretch it out because I had to focus on my latest working, but I can see that that's inexcusable. I will do my best to make the rest of the chapters longer, but if tmy series turns out to be a short story, then so be it. I want to accomplish things that I wanted to do rather than not accomplish it. Thank you for being honest. 

Also, I'm not mad at Morokke for what he said, but he needs to explain himself if he doesn't want to look like a jerk.


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## Volpino (Oct 4, 2009)

As far as grammar and punctuation goes, you would benefit from having a friend proof-read before you submit. I'm not sure I agree with the "write in your native language" deal. I'm not seeing much that, if the story was good, an equally good editor couldn't fix. I have seen stories published in English written by people that didn't speak it as their native language.

It looks to me like you have more of a prologue here than an actual chapter. You're giving a little bit of insight that will make more sense once the story really starts. That makes it difficult to review without reading on, but here goes:

My main thought in reading it, is "Breathe!" Paragraphs and punctuation don't only serve as a technical aspect, needed for proper structure. They also are instructions from the writer to the reader on how the story is meant to be read. When you throw many sentences together without breaks, it makes the reader less likely to work a long pause into your dialogue

Along the same line, when you use only short sentences in quick succession, it's a little like you're timing the breaths of the reader and forcing an increase in speed. This is a great tool in an action scene.

Um. This isn't an action scene. You want sufficient paragraph breaks, but also nice long and flowing sentences. If you need some examples of how to blow a sentence almost completely out of proportion, I suggest reading the first edition Dungeons and Dragons books written by E. Gary Gygax. His are much longer than you want, but an extreme makes it easier to see what's happening.

If this is a prologue, then the length isn't so much of a problem as the rhythm. You need to draw out your basic ideas just a little bit more and let the reader chew on them a bit longer. I'm not saying you need to give more information, that's entirely a writer thing, but the reader isn't being given enough time to digest each background idea you're presenting.

Cracks about a wolf named Edward aside, I'm not seeing any earth-shatteringly new concepts to this story so far, but that's not a bad thing. As Terry Prachett points out in his novel _The Truth_, people are not always so much interested in the news, as they are the olds. One of my favorite stories, "Beauty" is a retelling of "Beauty and the Beast." And no matter how many times you've seen the Cinderella story redone, the movie _The Slipper and the Rose_, is always a welcome change.

My suggestion is to press forward on the story. Use it as a learning experience. Occasional rewrites of portions won't hurt, but I think your time would be best spent pressing forward and taking the lessons you learn from it onto another, greater work. I don't mean that to be cruel or mean. I just hate to see young writers give heart and soul to a project that they easily grow beyond.


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## Volpino (Oct 4, 2009)

And since the author's post came while I was typing in my review, I'll add again: I didn't see anything that out of whack in the language.

Rather than nit-pick though, I'd just suggest again having a friend proof-read it. A serious review takes me long enough without having to actually edit. That's why I don't charge for reviews, but do charge for editing.

Most writers end up reading their own stuff so many times, they can no longer effectively edit it. It's pretty much the norm.


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## Atrak (Oct 4, 2009)

Okay, this is weird. I have several examples of what I meant...but it keeps saying:
The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 1 characters.

Wth?


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## Atrak (Oct 4, 2009)

Okay, sorry, but I give up on it. I had several examples, but I won't let me post them. Yes, Vulpino, I am very nit-picky when it comes to grammar  . I've tried posting it in quick reply and the advanced reply. No go, sorry.


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## Volpino (Oct 4, 2009)

atrakaj said:


> Okay, sorry, but I give up on it. I had several examples, but I won't let me post them. Yes, Vulpino, I am very nit-picky when it comes to grammar  . I've tried posting it in quick reply and the advanced reply. No go, sorry.



Oh, I'm picky too, but it's 1. Something I think most people have a friend that can help with and 2. More trouble than is worth my time. =P


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## Atrak (Oct 4, 2009)

Ack. this is how nit-picky I am. *...but *it *won't let me post them.  For some reason, having about 7-8 quotes is confusing it -.- . It keeps saying I don't have even one character.


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## Volpino (Oct 4, 2009)

Upload a .txt file and link it?


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## Atrak (Oct 4, 2009)

Meh. I didn't save a copy of them, and it's not really worth it. Just know, larry, that your main problem is with verb tenses. You go from present to past, or vice versa, in the same sentence. That is not correct and very confusing, as least for me  .


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 4, 2009)

Chapters don't need to have a specific length, actually.  All you need to consider is, are you getting all the information you want to get across, across?  The famous examples of extremes in this regard are, of course, Stephen King (who sometimes writes chapters that are only a sentence long, sometimes less than that) and J.R.R. Tolkien (who wrote many 50 page+ chapters in The Lord of the Rings).  So putting a limit of greater than or equal to 5 pages seems a little arbitrary to me.  If a chapter seems short, it's probably an issue with pacing, rather than just not filling up a designated number of pages.


> For some reason, having about 7-8 quotes is confusing it -.- . It keeps saying I don't have even one character.


I'm not real clear on how the system works, but it might not count quoted material as actual characters.  So if you have a quote and nothing else, it'll say you have zero (I think... I don't know).  If all else fails, just copy and paste the quotes as regular text and then put quotation marks around them.


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## Volpino (Oct 4, 2009)

M. Le Renard said:


> Chapters don't need to have a specific length, actually.  All you need to consider is, are you getting all the information you want to get across, across?  The famous examples of extremes in this regard are, of course, Stephen King (who sometimes writes chapters that are only a sentence long, sometimes less than that) and J.R.R. Tolkien (who wrote many 50 page+ chapters in The Lord of the Rings).  So putting a limit of greater than or equal to 5 pages seems a little arbitrary to me.  If a chapter seems short, it's probably an issue with pacing, rather than just not filling up a designated number of pages.



One of my favorites for disregarding chapters altogether is Terry Pratchett. He has novels that are a single chapter. Shame on his editor though, that's something they're supposed to help writers with.


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## Atrak (Oct 4, 2009)

Renard, it wasn't all quotes. In fact, the first and last things were not quotes. -.- Like I said to Volpino, though, I already did it once, and doing it again is just not something I can do with any motivation  .


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 4, 2009)

Bizarre.  Don't know what to tell you, then.  Maybe point out the problem in the Forum Support section, if you haven't already.


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## Derricklesters2009 (Oct 7, 2009)

Morroke said:


> Wow hey, I stopped reading right there.



I laughed till I cried when I read that.


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## Altamont (Oct 26, 2009)

Hello, larry669! I'm Altamont, a new user to the forums but a longtime writer, and I'd like to offer up some constructive criticism if I may:

First of all, I would have to agree with the above posts in that the length of your chapters do your story a disservice; it seems as if everything has been stripped to the bone in regards to plot and narration. If I were you, I'd work on expanding your description and narration techniques to provide a clearer depiction of the events of your tale.

Actually, my main criticism would have to do with plot, or a lack thereof. Despite being two "chapters" in, almost nothing has happened to adequately define character, setting, tone, theme, etc. While your idea has potential, it is up to you to actually capitalize on it and provide for the reader a clear story within your writing; otherwise, there will be no reason to read it.

Hopefully, this will help you in some way to grow and mature as a teller of stories.

Best of luck,
A. Wolfe


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 26, 2009)

Was going to leave all of the threads like this previous to the rule change unlocked, but I guess I'll have to lock this one, since people keep bringing it back to the top.
If you still want your story looked at, Larry, just post a new response to the Critique Thread.
Locking now...


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