Hey guys! Some of you might know me from IF and a few other sites. For those of you who don't--hello, I'm Ben, also known as Spinner. I hail from Vermont, where I attend college for Professional Writing. Aside from novice blogging, I'm also training myself to write novels professionally. But like most of y'all, I also do a lot of writing for fun--segueing into the point of this post.
Online writing's a slowly growing and potentially thriving world. Many of you aiming to be published will probably post work on forums like Be Creative to test yourself against an audience and improve your prose and storytelling. Forums are a great means for that, and you're going to find there's a wealth of them in every genre imaginable. There really is nothing like slaving over a piece of writing for hours, only to post it, sign off and get comments in the morning. For something that can be as arduous as writing, its a heavenly feeling.
Every writer strives toward writing something interesting--both enough for themselves and their readers. In online writing, this can be a tricky balance. You know your plot--or rather, you should to some degree--and sometimes there are going to be things you need so things can make sense. Many times, I've committed the crime of writing 20 pages of world building only to have people be all *...yawn*. Not a fun feeling. This is supposed to be interesting!
When building your online stories, you need to be mindful of a few vital facts: firstly, that reading on a computer screen is hard. Your updates should be short and to the point. This will become very helpful when you start writing longer pieces for publication (it teaches you pacing). Secondly, info dumps are even more wearing. Try to find a creative means of building your world. This can be done through overheard conversations, conversations characters take part in, or things on bulletins, computer screens, what have you. Information is all around you--it doesn't always have to be spoken. This can also be an imaginative vehicle for subplots.
Keeping your posts short and the content in abundance will keep readers flocking to your story. But just because its quick doesn't mean you need to spend any less time on it. In fact, you can use the extra time to add more content, giving the world a vitality. This was how Charles Dickens used to write, and while he was paid by the word-count, his stuff is extremely vibrant. Read Tale of Two Cities if you don't believe me!
What you should remember above all, is that writing is supposed to be fun. A lot of people post things about what you should or shouldn't do online. This isn't a formulaic process. Its easier to identify unoriginality and derivation than you think. In fact, if you find yourself thinking, "I wonder if people will notice if I borrowed from this," the answer is probably that someone will.
Good luck with your stuff. See you on the forums!
Ben
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
Description
The WG Editors Thoughts: Description
So, every now and then, the WG editors will each collaboratively post their thoughts regarding an aspect of writing. We won't be giving any pointers or tutorials, but perhaps a paragraph or two regarding their thoughts on good ways to do it, or perhaps how they do it.
Isaiah
Description is the most descriptive part of writing, if it's done correctly. There are several things you can do that will help you describe things in your story. A common way is to talk about the way it interacts with your 5 senses (what does it sound like, feel like, look like, smell like, taste like?). Another way is to come up with as many adjectives as you can that describe what you're writing about. You should definitely incorporate colors as adjectives. It's also a huge help to visualize what you're describing. Let's use a tree as an example. Don't just think "trees are tall and green with brown bark", you have to really visualize the finer details. The way some of the bark is ripped up, how the veins on the leaves are slightly crooked, the way it bulges near the center, like a planet, etc.
Warden
Descriptions... Dangerous in wrong hands, disastrous when gotten wrong and just magical when used well. Some call it the butter of the story sandwich; with plot being the bread and emotions the topping. Without the butter it's not half as good, while without the topping it's still edible. But for whatever is said about that part of writing, it's indisputable that it's one of the most crucial parts of any story - for without description... What would you be writing?
Ever
Description. One of the most important things in writing a book. If you do not have description in your story then all you have is a buch of words that are nothing but blurs when you try to imagine the scene behind them.
There is one thing that I have been told by others, mostly PF, and learned to do and that is, when describing a place or person you must put yourself in the place of your character. Feel and see what your character feels. Imagine every detail of your characters surrounding, then put into words.
Example.
"Sam sat upon her homes roof, with her arms wrapped around her kness and her head resting on her shin. Her black hair swirled all around her peaceful looking face as the wind blew through the land. Her sea blue eyes looked around the vast green woodsy land around her and the endless blue sky above her."
Also, you can use other objects to describ something, such as what I did above ^ with the color of Sam's
eyes. (Her sea blue eyes looked around).
Jsquared
Description is a really tricky subject. If you're too superfluous, then you bore your reader. If you lack in it, than either your reader does not know what is going on, must picture what is going on using their own imagination, and/or your flow will be hindered. In addition, the work will feel rushed. When you are explaining something, do not say what it is. Describe its characteristics until the reader knows what it is, who it is, what they look like or what was done.
Think of it like this. In a fight scene, writers do not go into grotesque details of what the fighters see as they hack and slash through. Why? Because then the reader is going to be grossed out and not want to read. We do not want to know about the entrails that began to fall out of a dude that just had his stomach slashed open. You will alienate some of your readers as well. The same thing goes for all description, just replaced grossed out, with perhaps bored to death in some cases.
______________________________________________________
The WG editor's thoughts will be in sync with the articles of the blog, whichever topic they decide to post, the WG editors will add in their thoughts to. Though, if we see something in WD that a lot of people want to see, then we will look at that as well. One of the editors, Angelic Ninja, could not be reached for comment.
So, every now and then, the WG editors will each collaboratively post their thoughts regarding an aspect of writing. We won't be giving any pointers or tutorials, but perhaps a paragraph or two regarding their thoughts on good ways to do it, or perhaps how they do it.
Isaiah
Description is the most descriptive part of writing, if it's done correctly. There are several things you can do that will help you describe things in your story. A common way is to talk about the way it interacts with your 5 senses (what does it sound like, feel like, look like, smell like, taste like?). Another way is to come up with as many adjectives as you can that describe what you're writing about. You should definitely incorporate colors as adjectives. It's also a huge help to visualize what you're describing. Let's use a tree as an example. Don't just think "trees are tall and green with brown bark", you have to really visualize the finer details. The way some of the bark is ripped up, how the veins on the leaves are slightly crooked, the way it bulges near the center, like a planet, etc.
Warden
Descriptions... Dangerous in wrong hands, disastrous when gotten wrong and just magical when used well. Some call it the butter of the story sandwich; with plot being the bread and emotions the topping. Without the butter it's not half as good, while without the topping it's still edible. But for whatever is said about that part of writing, it's indisputable that it's one of the most crucial parts of any story - for without description... What would you be writing?
Ever
Description. One of the most important things in writing a book. If you do not have description in your story then all you have is a buch of words that are nothing but blurs when you try to imagine the scene behind them.
There is one thing that I have been told by others, mostly PF, and learned to do and that is, when describing a place or person you must put yourself in the place of your character. Feel and see what your character feels. Imagine every detail of your characters surrounding, then put into words.
Example.
"Sam sat upon her homes roof, with her arms wrapped around her kness and her head resting on her shin. Her black hair swirled all around her peaceful looking face as the wind blew through the land. Her sea blue eyes looked around the vast green woodsy land around her and the endless blue sky above her."
Also, you can use other objects to describ something, such as what I did above ^ with the color of Sam's
eyes. (Her sea blue eyes looked around).
Jsquared
Description is a really tricky subject. If you're too superfluous, then you bore your reader. If you lack in it, than either your reader does not know what is going on, must picture what is going on using their own imagination, and/or your flow will be hindered. In addition, the work will feel rushed. When you are explaining something, do not say what it is. Describe its characteristics until the reader knows what it is, who it is, what they look like or what was done.
Think of it like this. In a fight scene, writers do not go into grotesque details of what the fighters see as they hack and slash through. Why? Because then the reader is going to be grossed out and not want to read. We do not want to know about the entrails that began to fall out of a dude that just had his stomach slashed open. You will alienate some of your readers as well. The same thing goes for all description, just replaced grossed out, with perhaps bored to death in some cases.
______________________________________________________
The WG editor's thoughts will be in sync with the articles of the blog, whichever topic they decide to post, the WG editors will add in their thoughts to. Though, if we see something in WD that a lot of people want to see, then we will look at that as well. One of the editors, Angelic Ninja, could not be reached for comment.
Writing: What Not To Do (Part 2)
As you studious younglings last remember, I promised to bring you an examination of the Draconic Ponies and their Land Before Time. Well, first off, there was no Land Before Time scenario. Character's in that beloved animation had a quality known as personality, which was skillfully separated from their abilities. Such is not the case here. Unlike the former critique, mostly for the stake of fairness and credibility, I'm going to do something more akin to a line-by-line critique. This will offer the reader a much clearer picture of why this is an example of bad writing. In fact, the first sentence is a good start.
"In a place unimaginably far from the Abyssal (capitalization error) ((At least I think it is)) home of the Dark Queen's brood, a different world took shape, gradually emerging from the chaos of Godly dreams."
This sentence is confusing. The beginning isn't problematic, but it isn't clear in the final parts of this sentence whether the dreams in question are the dreams of the Gods (Giving us the impression that this novel is going to take a philosophical turn, giving us the impression that reality is just a dream of some God or Gods). Of course, one could infer that the author was trying to go subjective experience on us, being that our subjects are the cutest little firebreathing monsters on the planet. Now, give me a moment to browse over the text...
The author pretty much throws more "GOOD V.S EVIL" crapola in my face for a good few sentances, assuming that I am five years old, and have difficulty distinguishing between a hellish underworld (our first setting) and what seems like a Garden of Eden, or to be more accurate, a Grotto of Eden. (Why do I keep on thinking Ghetto, these dragons are many things, Gangsta is NOT one of them)
Do any of you know what it means for something to have "Gleamed in the colors of precious metals"? I don't think it's an explicit grammar violation (You should have an easy time locating the text I'm referencing in the excerpt) but it doesn't sound right.
Do any of you know what it means for movement to stir? (I'm detecting a pattern)
"metallic shells rupturing to allow scaly wyrmlings to emerge" Now here's the problem, eggs aren't metallic. They may have a metallic sheen, but to BE metallic would make hatching impossible, and we wouldn't have any characters, as they would have died. Also, the shells do not rupture under their own power, as the author seems to suggest, the hatchlings rupture them.
Next we get a description of these cute bundles of flaming joy (or in this case flaming, shocking, freezing and other such elemental joys) have an aura of peace sheltering them (at this point, I vomited on the keyboard, so do forgive me. This took several minutes to clean up, and delayed my lesson). The description surrounding isn't actually that problematic, yet. It's very romantic, which was the intention of the author. I had no problems with this.
"All were vigorus, active, and strong." This is all redundant, these words are very close synonyms, and when used together in this context, are nearly the same thing.
"Still there was never any question but that Darlantan and Aurican would vie for mastery within their nest." Now this is interesting. There is a non "Good v.s Evil" difference between Crematorium's upbringing and our goody four claw's, other than being ruled by an evil matriarch and all. Here we have some conflict, whereas Crematorium dominates everyone. Fairly soon, we see two distinct behavioral patters, although rather cliche, emerge. (THere is nothing wrong with cliche in and of itself, so long as you don't depend on it.) We have our strong skilled type, and our quick, clever type. These two, through their constant competition, developed games, and were the intrepid explorers of the nest.
I will take a moment to give my views on Cliche. The general trend in modern literature is to avoid any cliche like the plague. This is because they view cliche as a plague anyway. It is not merely an adjective that can be applied to an element of a story, but it is an infectious quality, it spreads and destroy's everything around it, eating away at the very fabric of not just the individual story, but the entire literary world. Quarantine is needed, vaccination must be mandatory, young authors must have protection against cliche, they cannot write without protection, the risk of cliche is too great.
However, I take a much more liberal view of cliche. Personally, I like stories of knights going off to slay the dragon (Which is so cliche it might actually be original now) I like the nostalgic affect of a well done cliche, the feeling of familiarity it brings to a story. Intrepid youngsters, specifically a competing pair of such individuals, is very common in stories. Yet I still enjoy it. And I am sure that a majority of the audience can too.
Now... back to the chapter. One problem this story has a priori is the fact that it covers VAST spans of time. Hundreds of years pass between chapters, sometimes thousands (When we get into generations shifts). This makes writing difficult. Epic time spans have to be done very well to work (much like playing the queen's pawn first in chess), it requires skill and experience to learn how to display such a vast change in time. However, when it is achieved, the result is very powerful (at least to me). The author has put himself in a corner here, the manner in which he writes makes it impossible for him to show the evidence of any meaningful passage of time (an isolated nest) and he has to resort to telling us, and telling us alone (which is the problem).
Also, other "personalities" begin to emerge. Smelt is said to be an inquisitive chatterbox, although this is told to us through the narrator (this is a character type I sympathize with for obvious reasons) and not shown or proven (the latter assuming he already told us) by any latter encounters. It is a fact mentioned, by the narrator, and then regurgitated by the characters. (The personalities are predictable by a chart such as this
Although the author fails to create highly expressive personalities, which is a problem. He bases characters on stereotypes (fine) but doesn't even develop the characters TO the stereotype, much less characterize beyond (which is optimal).
Actually, the author does some implied characterization with Darlantan and Aurican, so these character's aren't complete cutouts. Although they derive most persona from they're "subspecies".
Our two friends, Darl and Auri go into the darkness, dun dun dun.
"In a place unimaginably far from the Abyssal (capitalization error) ((At least I think it is)) home of the Dark Queen's brood, a different world took shape, gradually emerging from the chaos of Godly dreams."
This sentence is confusing. The beginning isn't problematic, but it isn't clear in the final parts of this sentence whether the dreams in question are the dreams of the Gods (Giving us the impression that this novel is going to take a philosophical turn, giving us the impression that reality is just a dream of some God or Gods). Of course, one could infer that the author was trying to go subjective experience on us, being that our subjects are the cutest little firebreathing monsters on the planet. Now, give me a moment to browse over the text...
The author pretty much throws more "GOOD V.S EVIL" crapola in my face for a good few sentances, assuming that I am five years old, and have difficulty distinguishing between a hellish underworld (our first setting) and what seems like a Garden of Eden, or to be more accurate, a Grotto of Eden. (Why do I keep on thinking Ghetto, these dragons are many things, Gangsta is NOT one of them)
Do any of you know what it means for something to have "Gleamed in the colors of precious metals"? I don't think it's an explicit grammar violation (You should have an easy time locating the text I'm referencing in the excerpt) but it doesn't sound right.
Do any of you know what it means for movement to stir? (I'm detecting a pattern)
"metallic shells rupturing to allow scaly wyrmlings to emerge" Now here's the problem, eggs aren't metallic. They may have a metallic sheen, but to BE metallic would make hatching impossible, and we wouldn't have any characters, as they would have died. Also, the shells do not rupture under their own power, as the author seems to suggest, the hatchlings rupture them.
Next we get a description of these cute bundles of flaming joy (or in this case flaming, shocking, freezing and other such elemental joys) have an aura of peace sheltering them (at this point, I vomited on the keyboard, so do forgive me. This took several minutes to clean up, and delayed my lesson). The description surrounding isn't actually that problematic, yet. It's very romantic, which was the intention of the author. I had no problems with this.
"All were vigorus, active, and strong." This is all redundant, these words are very close synonyms, and when used together in this context, are nearly the same thing.
"Still there was never any question but that Darlantan and Aurican would vie for mastery within their nest." Now this is interesting. There is a non "Good v.s Evil" difference between Crematorium's upbringing and our goody four claw's, other than being ruled by an evil matriarch and all. Here we have some conflict, whereas Crematorium dominates everyone. Fairly soon, we see two distinct behavioral patters, although rather cliche, emerge. (THere is nothing wrong with cliche in and of itself, so long as you don't depend on it.) We have our strong skilled type, and our quick, clever type. These two, through their constant competition, developed games, and were the intrepid explorers of the nest.
I will take a moment to give my views on Cliche. The general trend in modern literature is to avoid any cliche like the plague. This is because they view cliche as a plague anyway. It is not merely an adjective that can be applied to an element of a story, but it is an infectious quality, it spreads and destroy's everything around it, eating away at the very fabric of not just the individual story, but the entire literary world. Quarantine is needed, vaccination must be mandatory, young authors must have protection against cliche, they cannot write without protection, the risk of cliche is too great.
However, I take a much more liberal view of cliche. Personally, I like stories of knights going off to slay the dragon (Which is so cliche it might actually be original now) I like the nostalgic affect of a well done cliche, the feeling of familiarity it brings to a story. Intrepid youngsters, specifically a competing pair of such individuals, is very common in stories. Yet I still enjoy it. And I am sure that a majority of the audience can too.
Now... back to the chapter. One problem this story has a priori is the fact that it covers VAST spans of time. Hundreds of years pass between chapters, sometimes thousands (When we get into generations shifts). This makes writing difficult. Epic time spans have to be done very well to work (much like playing the queen's pawn first in chess), it requires skill and experience to learn how to display such a vast change in time. However, when it is achieved, the result is very powerful (at least to me). The author has put himself in a corner here, the manner in which he writes makes it impossible for him to show the evidence of any meaningful passage of time (an isolated nest) and he has to resort to telling us, and telling us alone (which is the problem).
Also, other "personalities" begin to emerge. Smelt is said to be an inquisitive chatterbox, although this is told to us through the narrator (this is a character type I sympathize with for obvious reasons) and not shown or proven (the latter assuming he already told us) by any latter encounters. It is a fact mentioned, by the narrator, and then regurgitated by the characters. (The personalities are predictable by a chart such as this
Although the author fails to create highly expressive personalities, which is a problem. He bases characters on stereotypes (fine) but doesn't even develop the characters TO the stereotype, much less characterize beyond (which is optimal).
Actually, the author does some implied characterization with Darlantan and Aurican, so these character's aren't complete cutouts. Although they derive most persona from they're "subspecies".
Our two friends, Darl and Auri go into the darkness, dun dun dun.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Writing: What Not To Do
Generally, one common tactic writers use to instruct others aspiring to their noble profession is to dispense sage-like advice upon us mortals, to give us guide lines such as "Provide depth in your worlds, give a meaningful history to your characters..." This is all well and good. However, there is yet another teaching tool at the dispense of the instructor, that is, to provide neophytes with what cannot be called anything other than the most abysmal writing ever. Invision provided us with a basic idea as to what makes good writing, I will elaborate, while discussing our negative examples, including epic failures such as "DragonLance: The Lost Histories: Volume VI 'The Dragons' and any other abomination that happens to fall in my path of puritanical purging.
Let's begin with some basics, my pupils.
1. Good and Evil: In the real world (That means where people aren't either Sith or Jedi for you Star Wars fans out there) there is something known as Moral Ambiguity. This quite magical quality is a result of the fundamental truth that no single individual on this planet (except for Jesus Christ for you Christians out there) was ever completely good, or completely evil. Also, since this applies to individuals, this applies to various groups in conflict. The idea that people are either good or evil is fundementally infantile. (If you want proof, just google "Object-relations theory") Note that in fairy tales (That is, children's stories) characters are generally all good or evil. This isn't a bad thing in and of itself, since children reading George R. R. Martin (A writer who can show you the meaning of Moral Ambiguity) wouldn't be able to understand such a world. Children see the world often as either good or evil, it is part of being a child. But also, as children, we learn that people all have faults. When an author makes "perfect" characters, either perfectly evil, or perfectly good, this pulls us back to the days when we decided that mommy's breasts were good because we could get milk from them, and consequently mommy was good. We are taken back to a state of childishness, and not in a good way. While some level of Moral ambiguity is good, it is certainly just as bad to try and completely neutralize your characters. What this does is destroy sympathetic characterization, and it means that no reader will give a rat's rear what happens to your character, because he's a jerk anyway.
2. Characterization: People are part of the world, they have good and evil traits. They have histories, they have personalities, they have goals, and preferred means to achieve them. They have hopes, dreams, and fears. Forget this, and you can flush your aspirations of writing something even remotely respectable down the toilet. Writing is fundementally a deception, a clever puppet show on a handmade stage, where the author tries is best to make us forget we are reading words on a page. When your characters are essentially cardboard cutouts mounted on Popsicle sticks, YOU WILL FAIL!!! This isn't merely something that MAY happen, it is something that WILL happen. If you poke a sleeping dragon, you will die in some painful form or fashion (Unless you are Bilbo Baggins with a magic ring, in which case you will die of old age like the rest of us). While you can use cardboard characters with a child audience, as your readership matures, such parlor tricks will illicit vollies of tomatoes. (Or more accurately swarms of negative reviews) Characters are people. (whether they are Dragons, Aliens ((Or both at the same time) Elves, Dwarves, Men, Hobbits, or Amoebas) If you want an analogy that will be more fitting with the times, you can imagine a "Character Wal-Mart" with endless shelves of stock characters that can be bought cheaply (No effort put into it), yet are of extremely low quality. Example: Wise Magician Dude, $1.00 per unit, useful for infodumps, dying pointlessly, killing large numbers of enemies with deus ex machina, and anything your pathetic excuse for an imagination can think of. Now, of course, just because a character is wise, and happens to be wise in the ways of magic and such, doesn't imply that they are a bad character. The distinction between a GOOD WMD (lol) and a BAD WMD is that a bad one has no other significant aspects besides its being a WMD. Of course, for every rule, there are exceptions. Sometimes, a character can be used as a symbol of the author's idea of good and evil, an example being Jesus of Nazareth (or Howard Roark, or John Galt). However, none of these characters are without limitations, or struggles (Jesus had to die on a cross, suffer temptations like the rest of humanity, Roark was merely a great architect, and lacked super powers of any sort etc.)
With these ideas in mind, let's explore some tomato worthy literature.
My first exhibit for you students is the one mentioned in the beginning of the article. Dragon Lance: The Lost Histories: Volume VI (If you want to read the book for yourself, you can buy it here ((Or read an excerpt and get a taste) http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Dragonlance-Lost-Histories-Vol/dp/0786905131 )
This story is from the "Dragon Lance" universe, a fantasy world with which I am not acquainted. Most of my criticism is through the fields above, I do not hold any failures in worldbuilding against the author, the world was there for him, pre fabricated. (Although some of my criticism WILL be world building related since it will come through the other fields)
From page one, the author burns a path of destruction through Fantasy literature, leaving rich forests of character potential and ethical reflection in smoldering ruin. Let's begin with our main evil character: Crematia. We can already tell that she is evil, if not from her name (Which sounds like crematorium) from the fact that within the first few pages, she slaughters a bunch of furry innocent creatures. Not only that, but she decides to mix in infant sadism with hatchling hunger, and proceeds to commit acts that would make Voldemort and Galbatorix blush, if the former had the anatomical ability to do so. Crematia is evil. This is abundantly obvious, the author doesn't state it flatly, or imply it, he flings it in the reader's faces like a rabid monkey who had just downed a chili dog, adding an acidic sting to the warm, sickening sensation of scat on our faces. After this torture porno of a hatching, our mistress of death meets her maker, who happens to be teh ebul dark lord. (Note: Readers, the name of said dark lord is the Dark Queen. Why are all of the beginning evil characters female? I sense subtle sexism.) The Evil Dark Lord talks of Crematorium's Evil Dark Destiny to do Dark Evil Deeds for Dark Evil reasons (meaning pure sadism and the logic that "Mercy is Weakness" ((Yes, it is THAT corny). Pretty much, our cute cruel dragoness has a divine mission, which pretty much amounts to destroying everything good and pretty and naturey in the world. By this, I mean
that she is commissioned to destroy all that is "My Little Pony w/ Dragons" in the world. We will meet our draconic ponies later, for now, let us dwell on the fact that Crematorium has a few siblings, all apparently evil. Of course, to add to this fact, they are all one particular CLASS of evil beings who are ALL evil. If your intellects are worth respecting, you see the problems here.
Now of course, there must be an eternal balance of Good and Evil, so... in our next installment, we shall explorez teh Draconic Ponies and their adventures in what can only be termed as what happens when a 5 year old finds his mother's cocaine.
Let's begin with some basics, my pupils.
1. Good and Evil: In the real world (That means where people aren't either Sith or Jedi for you Star Wars fans out there) there is something known as Moral Ambiguity. This quite magical quality is a result of the fundamental truth that no single individual on this planet (except for Jesus Christ for you Christians out there) was ever completely good, or completely evil. Also, since this applies to individuals, this applies to various groups in conflict. The idea that people are either good or evil is fundementally infantile. (If you want proof, just google "Object-relations theory") Note that in fairy tales (That is, children's stories) characters are generally all good or evil. This isn't a bad thing in and of itself, since children reading George R. R. Martin (A writer who can show you the meaning of Moral Ambiguity) wouldn't be able to understand such a world. Children see the world often as either good or evil, it is part of being a child. But also, as children, we learn that people all have faults. When an author makes "perfect" characters, either perfectly evil, or perfectly good, this pulls us back to the days when we decided that mommy's breasts were good because we could get milk from them, and consequently mommy was good. We are taken back to a state of childishness, and not in a good way. While some level of Moral ambiguity is good, it is certainly just as bad to try and completely neutralize your characters. What this does is destroy sympathetic characterization, and it means that no reader will give a rat's rear what happens to your character, because he's a jerk anyway.
2. Characterization: People are part of the world, they have good and evil traits. They have histories, they have personalities, they have goals, and preferred means to achieve them. They have hopes, dreams, and fears. Forget this, and you can flush your aspirations of writing something even remotely respectable down the toilet. Writing is fundementally a deception, a clever puppet show on a handmade stage, where the author tries is best to make us forget we are reading words on a page. When your characters are essentially cardboard cutouts mounted on Popsicle sticks, YOU WILL FAIL!!! This isn't merely something that MAY happen, it is something that WILL happen. If you poke a sleeping dragon, you will die in some painful form or fashion (Unless you are Bilbo Baggins with a magic ring, in which case you will die of old age like the rest of us). While you can use cardboard characters with a child audience, as your readership matures, such parlor tricks will illicit vollies of tomatoes. (Or more accurately swarms of negative reviews) Characters are people. (whether they are Dragons, Aliens ((Or both at the same time) Elves, Dwarves, Men, Hobbits, or Amoebas) If you want an analogy that will be more fitting with the times, you can imagine a "Character Wal-Mart" with endless shelves of stock characters that can be bought cheaply (No effort put into it), yet are of extremely low quality. Example: Wise Magician Dude, $1.00 per unit, useful for infodumps, dying pointlessly, killing large numbers of enemies with deus ex machina, and anything your pathetic excuse for an imagination can think of. Now, of course, just because a character is wise, and happens to be wise in the ways of magic and such, doesn't imply that they are a bad character. The distinction between a GOOD WMD (lol) and a BAD WMD is that a bad one has no other significant aspects besides its being a WMD. Of course, for every rule, there are exceptions. Sometimes, a character can be used as a symbol of the author's idea of good and evil, an example being Jesus of Nazareth (or Howard Roark, or John Galt). However, none of these characters are without limitations, or struggles (Jesus had to die on a cross, suffer temptations like the rest of humanity, Roark was merely a great architect, and lacked super powers of any sort etc.)
With these ideas in mind, let's explore some tomato worthy literature.
My first exhibit for you students is the one mentioned in the beginning of the article. Dragon Lance: The Lost Histories: Volume VI (If you want to read the book for yourself, you can buy it here ((Or read an excerpt and get a taste) http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Dragonlance-Lost-Histories-Vol/dp/0786905131 )
This story is from the "Dragon Lance" universe, a fantasy world with which I am not acquainted. Most of my criticism is through the fields above, I do not hold any failures in worldbuilding against the author, the world was there for him, pre fabricated. (Although some of my criticism WILL be world building related since it will come through the other fields)
From page one, the author burns a path of destruction through Fantasy literature, leaving rich forests of character potential and ethical reflection in smoldering ruin. Let's begin with our main evil character: Crematia. We can already tell that she is evil, if not from her name (Which sounds like crematorium) from the fact that within the first few pages, she slaughters a bunch of furry innocent creatures. Not only that, but she decides to mix in infant sadism with hatchling hunger, and proceeds to commit acts that would make Voldemort and Galbatorix blush, if the former had the anatomical ability to do so. Crematia is evil. This is abundantly obvious, the author doesn't state it flatly, or imply it, he flings it in the reader's faces like a rabid monkey who had just downed a chili dog, adding an acidic sting to the warm, sickening sensation of scat on our faces. After this torture porno of a hatching, our mistress of death meets her maker, who happens to be teh ebul dark lord. (Note: Readers, the name of said dark lord is the Dark Queen. Why are all of the beginning evil characters female? I sense subtle sexism.) The Evil Dark Lord talks of Crematorium's Evil Dark Destiny to do Dark Evil Deeds for Dark Evil reasons (meaning pure sadism and the logic that "Mercy is Weakness" ((Yes, it is THAT corny). Pretty much, our cute cruel dragoness has a divine mission, which pretty much amounts to destroying everything good and pretty and naturey in the world. By this, I mean
that she is commissioned to destroy all that is "My Little Pony w/ Dragons" in the world. We will meet our draconic ponies later, for now, let us dwell on the fact that Crematorium has a few siblings, all apparently evil. Of course, to add to this fact, they are all one particular CLASS of evil beings who are ALL evil. If your intellects are worth respecting, you see the problems here.
Now of course, there must be an eternal balance of Good and Evil, so... in our next installment, we shall explorez teh Draconic Ponies and their adventures in what can only be termed as what happens when a 5 year old finds his mother's cocaine.
Copyright (C) Matty Lee, 2009.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
World Creation
Creating a world is always fun, but it is also hard. And sometimes, you can really screw up, if you don't know how to do it.
There are dozens of fantastic examples for perfectly created worlds, and millions of examples for badly-created ones. In this article, I will talk about creating a world to be the best it can be.
First off, you need an overall concept. It should definitely be something you want to write. As an fellow peer of mine has once said, "Writing is like marriage. Never commit until you can't believe your luck." You're going to be spending thousands of hours writing in this potential world, and it should have just that: Potential.
Now, if you're sticking to this universe or making a different one, you have to start with the basics of your idea. Say you're writing a fantasy, and you want to create a magic system. Think of magic like a science - there have to be laws, they have to be followed, and nothing can contradict. You can't just throw science out the window because you have magic - it all has to have a process. It's like taking away gravity and going "Wee! Everybody can fly!" I'm not saying that you should be piling on infodumps about how your magic system works - you shouldn't. It's usually best to show it in action. If you can't show it in action, maybe add a teacher or mentor to your book - or maybe just someone who knows more about magic than your main character.
Now that you have your basics worked out - the laws of physics, magic, whatever else is in your story - you should work on the aspects of making sure it all matches up. The cardinal law of creating a world is that nothing can contradict. This cannot be stressed enough.
After you work out your basic laws of physics, you should be looking at character creation. Most writers will already have a main character and immediate setting in mind. Ask around, tell a few people about your world and your characters, and make sure that your creations aren't too perfect. (This is called having a "mary sue"). Your character should not be a mesiah, or be more powerful than gods, etc. (Unless, of course, your character is a mesiah, or a god. Then it's suggested that you give them some kind of drawback.)
For an in-depth world, history is a must. Timelines can be a fantastic advantage to this. Set a time for the 'present' of your world, and add a past to it. An example is like this:
2001: Present.
1999: Slightly in the past. x event happened here.
1009: Far in the past. Something amazingly important must have happened for this to be remembered in history.
Next, you should add to the conflict of your world. (Since what is worth writing about if there is no conflict? There isn't anything to say.) As an example, my story Revelations was originally a religious war between two groups with superpowers. I added a third group, gave it a past, and let it fly. Then I added a time traveler to tie up more in the plot and to improve the overall readability of the book. The second cardinal rule in world creation is that every little thing is big. Even if it doesn't seem big to you, your reader will definitely notice everything. This conflict can vary, from the lives of individuals to something that might need an entire army. If it does involve an army, it's usually better to make it an individual conflict somehow - give your character a better reason to be in the army rather than 'I felt like it'. Adding individual conflicts are a great way to make the reader connect with your main character.
After that, it's pretty much your own decision on what to do; a creative license is a very good thing for a writer to keep on him at all times, since writing is all about being creative and making the old things seem new, and the unreal seem real. When you've finished all of these steps, your plot should be ready to be written - that is, if you haven't begun already from excitement.
"World Creation" Article Copyright (C) James Cohen, 2009.
Starting Your Novel
Before you write anything, poetry, a novel, a song, etc., pick a theme or point you want to get across. Maybe you want to praise or criticize a philosophy (example: place the greater good over your own interests). Maybe you want to inspire people just in general life. Maybe you want to persuade them to follow their hearts over their minds. When you do this, show the reality of it. Show the sacrifice it takes to work for the greater good, but also show the rewards. If you do it right, then the readers will agree with you. Perhaps you want to simply share an experience with us. The point is, everybody's got something to tell the world, and it's a sure thing that many people will care. A story about nothing is a nothing of a story.
Plan out what's going to happen before you start to write. Many people like to just jump into writing, and after a couple chapters they discover they have no plot or aren't skilled enough to write the path the story has taken. Plan the main plot, come up with your main characters, and make an antagonist at the very least. I would highly recommend planning a few subplots as well, because if they are well done then the story boost tremendously in interest value. Having numerous subplots and characters tend to make the reader's "lost" in the book. JK Rowling does this expertly in Harry Potter. She gives readers many characters, and most people love all of them, felt connected to them.
So now you've got your plot down, and you know what your story is about. Do you want to use Earth as the setting, or do you want to create your own world? New worlds can be very interesting if they're original (like Tolkein's was). A great way to get readers hooked is to show some differences between your world and the one readers are familiar with, though not fully explain them right away. Phillip Pullman does this rather well in His Dark Materials with daemons. We get to see how they behave and see how important they are, but we don't really know what they are. It gives the readers something else to keep them thinking about.
If you are using Earth, then what time does your story take place? Present day? Thousands of years ago? The future? There are many tools that can get readers interested in your story before they even know the plot. Planning out the basic structure of these will help you add more depth to them once you start writing. Knowing the time it takes place is especially crucial on Earth, because you must know the speech patterns in use then, the culture, etc.
So after you've picked out something you want to tell us and planned everything out, your story should be ready to roll.
Plan out what's going to happen before you start to write. Many people like to just jump into writing, and after a couple chapters they discover they have no plot or aren't skilled enough to write the path the story has taken. Plan the main plot, come up with your main characters, and make an antagonist at the very least. I would highly recommend planning a few subplots as well, because if they are well done then the story boost tremendously in interest value. Having numerous subplots and characters tend to make the reader's "lost" in the book. JK Rowling does this expertly in Harry Potter. She gives readers many characters, and most people love all of them, felt connected to them.
So now you've got your plot down, and you know what your story is about. Do you want to use Earth as the setting, or do you want to create your own world? New worlds can be very interesting if they're original (like Tolkein's was). A great way to get readers hooked is to show some differences between your world and the one readers are familiar with, though not fully explain them right away. Phillip Pullman does this rather well in His Dark Materials with daemons. We get to see how they behave and see how important they are, but we don't really know what they are. It gives the readers something else to keep them thinking about.
If you are using Earth, then what time does your story take place? Present day? Thousands of years ago? The future? There are many tools that can get readers interested in your story before they even know the plot. Planning out the basic structure of these will help you add more depth to them once you start writing. Knowing the time it takes place is especially crucial on Earth, because you must know the speech patterns in use then, the culture, etc.
So after you've picked out something you want to tell us and planned everything out, your story should be ready to roll.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Welcome to the ''Be Creative'' Blog!
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Be Creative blog! I had always looked for another service to offer to budding writers (bar the forum), and a blog for articles composed by the staff seemed like the most obvious thing. Now with our recent activity boom, this seems like as good a time as ever to start it.
I have already posted Jsquared's article on Critiquing and the All Forum Battle Chronicles. Soon we will be adding new articles dealing with writing, the All Forum Battle, and much more. Check back often!
I have already posted Jsquared's article on Critiquing and the All Forum Battle Chronicles. Soon we will be adding new articles dealing with writing, the All Forum Battle, and much more. Check back often!
The Art of Critiquing
By Jsquared
When you critique, you have two people. The Editor, and the Writer. You need to have a SYMBIOTIC relationship between the two. Most people probably think, "Oh, I am the writer. All I have to do is write away, and give it to the editor," Right? WRONG.
The writer has several jobs he must do when people look over his work. These are a few of them.
1. They need to highlight to his editor what he wants looked at. Perhaps, ask about specific thinks you would want your editor to comment on.
If you throw at your editor just a big piece of literature. They are going to look at you and go wait, what? What do you want me to focus on?! Diction, syntax, grammar, flow...or should I just do everything?! Is there anything specific that you want me to see that works?
One time, I asked a friend to take a look at one of my chapters, and they sent me back the chapter, and it had a bunch of grammar fixes. I facepalmed, because that was not what I wanted. I wanted to know if the chapter flowed right.
Some questions you can ask can be like, "Is my word choice strong enough here? Do I evoke this emotion enough? Did this speech move you? Does this section make you want to get out of your reading chair and do some action?"
If you tell those critiquing what you specifically want in addition to other things they do, it makes there job easier, and it makes your writing better since they know what you want.
2. When your editor asks a question, please be there to answer. I do not think I need to explain this.
3. Do not blindly make changes/accept what your editor says. Editors can make mistakes. They may miss something, or they may not realize why you put something in your writing, which is why you need to do rule number two. Make sure you put a lot of thought into the suggestions those who look at your work say. Sometimes they may say something, and you had a reason.
IE:"Hey, you didn't say much about this guy, elaborate more."
"I wanted to help characterize him as a shady character,"
"Oh, ok,"
or
"Repetition is bad. You kept going never again..... new sentence never again..... new sentence never again.."
"I was establishing my pathos. Did the repetition add emphasis for you?"
"Yes,"
"Then it works,"
HOWEVER, BE OBJECTIVE about it. If you go looking at their comments thinking they are wrong, it will be counterproductive. You need to have a valid reason to go against what your editor says. And a simple ,"Well I think what I wrote was better," Just doesn't cut it, nor does rationalizing a possible error.
4. Take your critique like a man, and fix what must be fixed.
Your readers obviously should not have any put downs in their critiques. However, you should not hold a personal vendetta against them if they have a lot of comments on what needs to be improved. They are only doing what they can to help you. If you are going to write and ask for criticism, then be ready to take it. And do not be stubborn. Swallow your pride, and change what needs to be changed, or improve what needs to be improved. This is the most obvious, and most important part of the writer's job. You can get away sometimes with numbers 1 and 2, and sometimes it is better to not do number 3 because it is easy to screw up on it, but you cannot avoid number 4. If you ignore number 4, then don't bother asking people to help improve your writing at all.
While the writer has those jobs. The editor has a lot of things he has to do.
1. For the love of God, please do not comment on a piece after only reading it once unless you are reading for entertainment and are going to praise the writer. If you have a thought, please reread the excerpt pertaining to that idea--I'm looking at several of my fanfic readers right here.
You need to read something AT LEAST twice before you comment on the writing, and the first time, you have to read it all the way through without stopping. If you do one go through, you will miss things. So many times I have seen a question asked, or a reader thinks they see a loophole in a plot point, when close reading could have easily disproven them or answered their question. There is nothing more frustrating to a writer, then having to answer the same questions several times when all the reader needed to do was read a bit more closely. You will never find everything in one go through of a chapter.
Why am I looking at some of my readers? You cannot tell me you can read through an over 7 page chapter in 10 minutes two times.
2. Do address the specific questions your writer asks, Do I need to elaborate? You could give a brilliant critique, but your writer will still be mad at you if asks a specific thing of you and you do not do it.
3. Never ever put down a writer. Push their thinking with questions as well.
Do not say "Oh, you do not have enough description." "I would suggest you describe things better," Is a better way to do it. Do not say, "Doing this will ruin your story," say "I think what you just did might be detrimental to your story,"
Also, when you critique, you should ask questions which will make your writer think. For instance, if we are looking at description, and lets say, we are talking about a house. Don't just say, describe the house more. Say, "What color is the house, how many stories? How many rooms? How big is it?" etc.
Or, if it deals with the central contention (NOT a small thing that has little consequence, otherwise you are asking a question that does not need to be asked), maybe you could ask, "Wait, why didn't he just do this?" Then the writer can go, "Ah, people are going to think that, I have to write something that will explain that," This part can help with twists and big scenes well. It is this rule that can help make your book believable. Remember though, you should not be negative when you do this.
4. Do not criticize because the writing does not follow formula.
This is a big no no. Do not say, "Oh, I heard in school you have to follow this five paragraph format, and you have to have First. Second, For example and so on," BREAK that habit. If you go "All the good stories have long updates," you will miss out as well. Those so called formulas only inhibit the style of a writer. This will lead to a lack of creativity. If you have absolutely no good reason to criticize something other than "Someone told me," then that's breaking this rule. So if you learned any so called "rules," throw them out,
5. Do not just look at what looks like excess description, or repetitions, and say BAD!
Description and repetition can be used to help emphasize points, and ultimately establish your rhetoric. Your rhetoric is going to make or break your writing. The beauty of writing, is you can claim anything so long as your rhetoric is strong. A great example for Inheritance fans, would be the Eldurnari talk, and the hummingbirds and Oromis being quiet. While CP has a lot of pointless description, in this case, he was using Oromis halting his talk when the hummingbirds came near to show just how secretive the riders were about the eldurnari.
There are cases where this is not the case, and it really is just superfluous description. Then you can attack them for that. Any repetitiveness which would cause direct characterization or other direct revelations, are also bad. Things specifically spelled out to a reader=not good. Overuse of the same adjectives, is also bad.
6. Explain to your writer what works, and if possible, why their rhetoric works,
This is simple. Your author needs to know what he's doing right and how he is doing it. Lets say, your goal in a chapter is to characterize a really annoying character, so they do so by making them pester away with really pointless, repetitive questions. Then you can say, "I really hate this character! They are so annoying! They make me want to hit something!" Then the author knows he has established pathos, and achieved his exigence, and his purpose perhaps. Pathos is how do you put emphasis and feeling into something, this is why politicians say "My friends," it makes them feel more human to their constituents. Exigence is what the writer wants to make his reader do when he is done reading, and the purpose, is why that excerpt was written. Say why the chapter hooked you, not just oh, you hooked me from the beginning.
Those things I said are only a few things. To give a quick primer on 3 things (Which are not the end all, be all of rhetoric,) you have Pathos, Ethos, and Logos. I already explained pathos.
Logos would be like your logic and such-this is establishes by doing things such as drawing conclusions from facts.
Ethos would be establishing credibility, be it through sources, or stating your credentials.
7. Except for poetry and songs, conciseness is always good, '
While you should have a balance of simple and compound sentences. It is always a good idea to make your writing concise. Do not become overly wordy, otherwise your reader is going to become irritated at having to read so many excess words. If you see an instance where an idea has already been established and the writer writes something similar but with slightly altered wording, such as, "The dead man died," or "The weeping baby cried," or "The Look for repeated phrases like the ___ of them, or for the moment, or at the moment, etc. Many people throw in a "that" where it is not needed-mostly in dialogue. However do not mistake this with repetition, as there are times where it is for emphasis. How do you spot the difference?
Most of the time, if the repetition is emphasis, it is a paragraph where a lot of the sentences begin with the same words, such as this line from one of my previous chapters(72, Lover's Lament)
Notice the repetition of never again, will I. In this case, the repetition is not conciseness. Each never again has a different subject. Now if somebody does this technique four or five times in a chapter...then that gets into the ballpark of hammering them, because if you go He was....he was... he was.... and then go She had...she had....she had....., then Never again....never again.... never again....... and so on and so forth, then the technique becomes annoying and loses its power to emphasize.
8. Grammar should be the least of your worries,
Yes, grammar is important, but not as important as content. The most important thing with grammar, is putting things in the active voice. But other than that, grammar nazis are not going to help a writer improve. Most errors we make on the computer end up to be typos in the end. Oh run on sentences can be trouble too.
9. Examples. Always.
If you do not show an example of a so called error, or mistake, then do not bother elaborating on it at all.
If you say, "You contradicted yourself here," but give no example, your writer cannot either explain why he is not contradicting himself, or cannot make the changes, because there is no example.
If you say, "You repeated this idea too much," Your writer may just shrug you off if you give no examples of how they did it. They won't know if it was bad repetition or good repetition either. You always need to give an example when you talk about something that needs improvement.
10. Plot
If you like something. Say what made you like it. What did it make you do? How did it make you feel? If it was a twist, did you see it coming?
If you disagree with something with the plot, do not just say "It is bad because I think it is," or "I don't like it," and give some BS reason. This is no better than spam. You have to have a valid reason why. Saying it will ruin your story, without reason is a BS reason, and a put down, and again, spam. The same goes for if something good with the plot happens. Don't say, "I don't like this because you killed this person, and I liked that character," say, "I think that you could have elaborated more on this story angle, but you killed that character and now you cannot,"
And please do not make big deals about small things. All you are going to do, is make the writer think "Why the heck am I wasting my time answering such a dumb question, that ultimately will not effect the story, or could have been answered with close reading (Points to rule one again).
____________________________________________________________________-
I'd like to thank the WG editors who looked at this as I made it today and yesterday. This is not an end all, be all of critique. This is just a supplement to help look at the things WOTG highlighted in his critiquing, a guide thread. If you noticed, I did not give many things you can critique, only ways to do so.
For instance, if your author asks, can you criticize my description? Then you can go ahead and ask to push them, if they need more description, "What does the character look like? Where is he positioned in this scene? What are his surroundings? What is the weather like?" etc
These points can be applied not only to stories, but essays and even poetry to an extent. My goal in making this, was the hope that we could help assist the readers in making better contributions, and make those contributions have more weight.
When you critique, you have two people. The Editor, and the Writer. You need to have a SYMBIOTIC relationship between the two. Most people probably think, "Oh, I am the writer. All I have to do is write away, and give it to the editor," Right? WRONG.
The writer has several jobs he must do when people look over his work. These are a few of them.
1. They need to highlight to his editor what he wants looked at. Perhaps, ask about specific thinks you would want your editor to comment on.
If you throw at your editor just a big piece of literature. They are going to look at you and go wait, what? What do you want me to focus on?! Diction, syntax, grammar, flow...or should I just do everything?! Is there anything specific that you want me to see that works?
One time, I asked a friend to take a look at one of my chapters, and they sent me back the chapter, and it had a bunch of grammar fixes. I facepalmed, because that was not what I wanted. I wanted to know if the chapter flowed right.
Some questions you can ask can be like, "Is my word choice strong enough here? Do I evoke this emotion enough? Did this speech move you? Does this section make you want to get out of your reading chair and do some action?"
If you tell those critiquing what you specifically want in addition to other things they do, it makes there job easier, and it makes your writing better since they know what you want.
2. When your editor asks a question, please be there to answer. I do not think I need to explain this.
3. Do not blindly make changes/accept what your editor says. Editors can make mistakes. They may miss something, or they may not realize why you put something in your writing, which is why you need to do rule number two. Make sure you put a lot of thought into the suggestions those who look at your work say. Sometimes they may say something, and you had a reason.
IE:"Hey, you didn't say much about this guy, elaborate more."
"I wanted to help characterize him as a shady character,"
"Oh, ok,"
or
"Repetition is bad. You kept going never again..... new sentence never again..... new sentence never again.."
"I was establishing my pathos. Did the repetition add emphasis for you?"
"Yes,"
"Then it works,"
HOWEVER, BE OBJECTIVE about it. If you go looking at their comments thinking they are wrong, it will be counterproductive. You need to have a valid reason to go against what your editor says. And a simple ,"Well I think what I wrote was better," Just doesn't cut it, nor does rationalizing a possible error.
4. Take your critique like a man, and fix what must be fixed.
Your readers obviously should not have any put downs in their critiques. However, you should not hold a personal vendetta against them if they have a lot of comments on what needs to be improved. They are only doing what they can to help you. If you are going to write and ask for criticism, then be ready to take it. And do not be stubborn. Swallow your pride, and change what needs to be changed, or improve what needs to be improved. This is the most obvious, and most important part of the writer's job. You can get away sometimes with numbers 1 and 2, and sometimes it is better to not do number 3 because it is easy to screw up on it, but you cannot avoid number 4. If you ignore number 4, then don't bother asking people to help improve your writing at all.
While the writer has those jobs. The editor has a lot of things he has to do.
1. For the love of God, please do not comment on a piece after only reading it once unless you are reading for entertainment and are going to praise the writer. If you have a thought, please reread the excerpt pertaining to that idea--I'm looking at several of my fanfic readers right here.
You need to read something AT LEAST twice before you comment on the writing, and the first time, you have to read it all the way through without stopping. If you do one go through, you will miss things. So many times I have seen a question asked, or a reader thinks they see a loophole in a plot point, when close reading could have easily disproven them or answered their question. There is nothing more frustrating to a writer, then having to answer the same questions several times when all the reader needed to do was read a bit more closely. You will never find everything in one go through of a chapter.
Why am I looking at some of my readers? You cannot tell me you can read through an over 7 page chapter in 10 minutes two times.
2. Do address the specific questions your writer asks, Do I need to elaborate? You could give a brilliant critique, but your writer will still be mad at you if asks a specific thing of you and you do not do it.
3. Never ever put down a writer. Push their thinking with questions as well.
Do not say "Oh, you do not have enough description." "I would suggest you describe things better," Is a better way to do it. Do not say, "Doing this will ruin your story," say "I think what you just did might be detrimental to your story,"
Also, when you critique, you should ask questions which will make your writer think. For instance, if we are looking at description, and lets say, we are talking about a house. Don't just say, describe the house more. Say, "What color is the house, how many stories? How many rooms? How big is it?" etc.
Or, if it deals with the central contention (NOT a small thing that has little consequence, otherwise you are asking a question that does not need to be asked), maybe you could ask, "Wait, why didn't he just do this?" Then the writer can go, "Ah, people are going to think that, I have to write something that will explain that," This part can help with twists and big scenes well. It is this rule that can help make your book believable. Remember though, you should not be negative when you do this.
4. Do not criticize because the writing does not follow formula.
This is a big no no. Do not say, "Oh, I heard in school you have to follow this five paragraph format, and you have to have First. Second, For example and so on," BREAK that habit. If you go "All the good stories have long updates," you will miss out as well. Those so called formulas only inhibit the style of a writer. This will lead to a lack of creativity. If you have absolutely no good reason to criticize something other than "Someone told me," then that's breaking this rule. So if you learned any so called "rules," throw them out,
5. Do not just look at what looks like excess description, or repetitions, and say BAD!
Description and repetition can be used to help emphasize points, and ultimately establish your rhetoric. Your rhetoric is going to make or break your writing. The beauty of writing, is you can claim anything so long as your rhetoric is strong. A great example for Inheritance fans, would be the Eldurnari talk, and the hummingbirds and Oromis being quiet. While CP has a lot of pointless description, in this case, he was using Oromis halting his talk when the hummingbirds came near to show just how secretive the riders were about the eldurnari.
There are cases where this is not the case, and it really is just superfluous description. Then you can attack them for that. Any repetitiveness which would cause direct characterization or other direct revelations, are also bad. Things specifically spelled out to a reader=not good. Overuse of the same adjectives, is also bad.
6. Explain to your writer what works, and if possible, why their rhetoric works,
This is simple. Your author needs to know what he's doing right and how he is doing it. Lets say, your goal in a chapter is to characterize a really annoying character, so they do so by making them pester away with really pointless, repetitive questions. Then you can say, "I really hate this character! They are so annoying! They make me want to hit something!" Then the author knows he has established pathos, and achieved his exigence, and his purpose perhaps. Pathos is how do you put emphasis and feeling into something, this is why politicians say "My friends," it makes them feel more human to their constituents. Exigence is what the writer wants to make his reader do when he is done reading, and the purpose, is why that excerpt was written. Say why the chapter hooked you, not just oh, you hooked me from the beginning.
Those things I said are only a few things. To give a quick primer on 3 things (Which are not the end all, be all of rhetoric,) you have Pathos, Ethos, and Logos. I already explained pathos.
Logos would be like your logic and such-this is establishes by doing things such as drawing conclusions from facts.
Ethos would be establishing credibility, be it through sources, or stating your credentials.
7. Except for poetry and songs, conciseness is always good, '
While you should have a balance of simple and compound sentences. It is always a good idea to make your writing concise. Do not become overly wordy, otherwise your reader is going to become irritated at having to read so many excess words. If you see an instance where an idea has already been established and the writer writes something similar but with slightly altered wording, such as, "The dead man died," or "The weeping baby cried," or "The Look for repeated phrases like the ___ of them, or for the moment, or at the moment, etc. Many people throw in a "that" where it is not needed-mostly in dialogue. However do not mistake this with repetition, as there are times where it is for emphasis. How do you spot the difference?
Most of the time, if the repetition is emphasis, it is a paragraph where a lot of the sentences begin with the same words, such as this line from one of my previous chapters(72, Lover's Lament)
- Quote:
Notice the repetition of never again, will I. In this case, the repetition is not conciseness. Each never again has a different subject. Now if somebody does this technique four or five times in a chapter...then that gets into the ballpark of hammering them, because if you go He was....he was... he was.... and then go She had...she had....she had....., then Never again....never again.... never again....... and so on and so forth, then the technique becomes annoying and loses its power to emphasize.
8. Grammar should be the least of your worries,
Yes, grammar is important, but not as important as content. The most important thing with grammar, is putting things in the active voice. But other than that, grammar nazis are not going to help a writer improve. Most errors we make on the computer end up to be typos in the end. Oh run on sentences can be trouble too.
9. Examples. Always.
If you do not show an example of a so called error, or mistake, then do not bother elaborating on it at all.
If you say, "You contradicted yourself here," but give no example, your writer cannot either explain why he is not contradicting himself, or cannot make the changes, because there is no example.
If you say, "You repeated this idea too much," Your writer may just shrug you off if you give no examples of how they did it. They won't know if it was bad repetition or good repetition either. You always need to give an example when you talk about something that needs improvement.
10. Plot
If you like something. Say what made you like it. What did it make you do? How did it make you feel? If it was a twist, did you see it coming?
If you disagree with something with the plot, do not just say "It is bad because I think it is," or "I don't like it," and give some BS reason. This is no better than spam. You have to have a valid reason why. Saying it will ruin your story, without reason is a BS reason, and a put down, and again, spam. The same goes for if something good with the plot happens. Don't say, "I don't like this because you killed this person, and I liked that character," say, "I think that you could have elaborated more on this story angle, but you killed that character and now you cannot,"
And please do not make big deals about small things. All you are going to do, is make the writer think "Why the heck am I wasting my time answering such a dumb question, that ultimately will not effect the story, or could have been answered with close reading (Points to rule one again).
____________________________________________________________________-
I'd like to thank the WG editors who looked at this as I made it today and yesterday. This is not an end all, be all of critique. This is just a supplement to help look at the things WOTG highlighted in his critiquing, a guide thread. If you noticed, I did not give many things you can critique, only ways to do so.
For instance, if your author asks, can you criticize my description? Then you can go ahead and ask to push them, if they need more description, "What does the character look like? Where is he positioned in this scene? What are his surroundings? What is the weather like?" etc
These points can be applied not only to stories, but essays and even poetry to an extent. My goal in making this, was the hope that we could help assist the readers in making better contributions, and make those contributions have more weight.
The AFB Chronicles
The All Forum Battle-June 16-July 21st
As most of you know, on June 16th, the highly anticipated All Forum Battle commenced. The AFB is a place where forum members can battle against other members and ultimately see who is the ultimate fighter in writing, poetry, art, and/or debating.
Sparks flew when the first duels of the AFB commenced. Titans clashed in the form of forum favorites Jsquared of Homer's Legion and Paradox Fatal of The Opposition. The captains of each team also went to war when Captain Matty Lee(TO) butted heads with Rock God(HL). Captain Angelic Ninja(HL) pulled double duty, dueling both Cellar Door(TO) and Brisingr(TO). Paradox Fatal(TO) clashed with Phoenixstarr(HL)
When the first week cleared, Homer's Legion took a swift 100 point lead(Each win for a member gives 50 points to the team's score), on the shoulders of their captain. He scored poetry and art victories over Cellar Door and Brisingr. But Homer's Legion took a quick tumble. Matty Lee won a comfortable victory in a writing duel over Rock God to turn the tides. Then, Paradox Fatal proved why he is The Opposition's Champion. He won two close duels against a near flawless short story about a walk in the forest against PhoenixStarr. Then, he won a heated debate against the heroic Jsquared in a debate about Pirates and Ninjas. They each made a spammy topic into a close, serious debate, with the pirates sipping their rum in victory at the end.
The second batch of duels commenced with The Opposition ahead 150-100. Jsquared began a rally for Homer's Legion by winning a squeaker against Isaiah JS. Their fight was a writer's duel about a musical prodigy. Jsquared flaunted his creativity, utilizing a modern event, the death of a superstar, Michael Jackson, and his story, in his short story. Angelic Ninja remained perfect, again besting Brisingr, this time in a writers' battle. This brought the score to 150-200 now in Homer's Legion's favor. Jsquared then cemented the lead by winning in a highly contested poem contest about death with Paradox Fatal. With newly recruited Evarya affirming the dominance of Homer's Legion by defeating Cellar Door in a writer's fight, Homer's Legion has a large lead heading into the end of July and start of August, ahead 300 points to 150 points.
Friendly Rivalry?
Two of the most heralded fanfiction writers from the Inheritance world, and forum friends, Jsquared and Paradox Fatal, began the fireworks with a debate about Pirates Vs Ninjas. While J2 narrowly lost, he rebounded and showed that he could hang with The Opposition's giant, besting him in a poetry contest. Many argue these two fighters are the best on their teams. The Opposition's Leader, Matty Lee, was quoted to have said in his fanfic "Retribution," that J2's short swords are second only to Paradox Fatal's blazing long sword. With each fighter boasting a victory, will there be an epic third battle between the two gladiators?
Duel of The Month
Paradox Fatal Vs PhoenixStarr is my pick. The two of them posted brilliant stories, and after the 1st two judges scored the bout, it was tied at 96-96. In the end, PhoenixStarr faltered by only three points against Paradox Fatal, in a contest where each warrior nearly achieved a perfect score. PhoenixStarr averaged 47 points per judge in that duel, and lost. How does that happen? A 94%, but you lose. 3 points away from an average perfect score.
Fighters of The Month
Paradox Fatal (TO) : He is the only fighter on his team to have entered the octagon three times. He has participated in 3 of the closest battles, and can claim 2 of the victories. Not only that, he is the overall score leader among fighters. He has fought the toughest matches.
Angelic Ninja(HL): While some may claim J2 is HL's hero, as he has more points, and needed to face the behemoth that is Paradox not once, but twice, we cannot deny the fact that Angelic Ninja has flexed his muscle, not only as being the first to 3 wins, but having a victory in three different categories.
Keep your eye on
Warden (TO): He was part of the round robin of J2, PF, and AN on Inheritance Forums. Any person who can write with those three is worth keeping an eye on.
PhoenixStarr (HL): While she has not participated in the AFB since her duel with Paradox Fatal, she nearly won a battle against arguably The Opposition's best asset, something few should be able to do. She even took one judgment from him.
Member's Opinions of the AFB
"The AFB has certainly found its footing within Be Creative. New warriors are joining weekly, which means a fresh insurgence of skill and talent. There are some up and comers, and I'll be looking for them on the battlefield. I have to say that the AFB has helped to bring this forum together. There is nothing more thrilling than setting yourself against another in a battle of witt and focus, and then having that outcome judged by your peers. Let the war continue."
-Paradox Fatal: The Opposition's Champion, the defender of the color pink.
"After being on the site for awhile, I really feel that one of the coolest concepts which has been put forth on it so far is the All Forum Battle.
Just to reiterate what it is, basically, we are on two teams, and you compete against another person in battles. These battles may be short stories, poems, debates, or art. You get the same prompt, and then your judged by three people. We keep track of points and everything, and at the end, there is going to be a final battle between the top 4(or 3) point getters on Sunfest's and Matty Lee's teams.
There's already been some cool things which have happened. Kull Conqueror's Short story contest with Phoenixstarr was probably our closest battle, and it was a good one. Probably our best duel yet.
Pirates and Ninjas, we had a debate on that. A serious debate mind you, between me and Kull Conqueror.
Whether or not it was meant to or not, I really think the All Forum Battle is a really cool concept and everyone should give it a try."
-JSquared, in a post on Inheritance Forums in the Advertising Hut
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