Do I have any talent? I wrote a story tell me what you think/ Give it to me hard.

reply to post by beansidhe


I never have but there you go! I have never been aware of it. It could also be one of those Oxford / Cambridge type of thing that occurs in literature. I don't know the name of the two Universities in the US that have these sort of brawls.

I will have to research the issue now. All good! Love to learn.

P

reply to post by Agent008


Glad I could help.

I am currently trying to write a feature length screenplay in the next five weeks and I haven't started yet haha.. This was a welcome diversion from a night of thinking and note-taking.

Agent008
reply to post by beansidhe

 

So many times I have struggled with this... If the sentence is short and the character needs to say maybe a 4 word sentence real quick is it okay for it be be in quotations in the same sentence without needing its own line.

I find sometimes it just flows better or improves the joke or moment more when a quotations is with the paragraph. That being said I understand that the norm is to have its own line and that works just fine

I guess it is! I'd never really noticed either until your thread. Now I'm picking random books to check. Hemingway and Christie do it too. Maybe it's the fact that most of my books are so old, and it was the style at the time?
As long as it's clear who is saying what, when and to whom, then I don't see why you couldn't do that.

reply to post by Agent008

I like it, but;
Maybe reserve the fact they are not on earth for later.
Also, put in more external description-they are in a forest but what is it like? What time of day? What's the weather like? From a purely practical point of view, you have to do this because you will really struggle to stretch this into a book solely on internal monologue, and i suspect that is why you are polishing and repolishing what you already have.
Finally, dont rewrite until the end-keep going, even if there's a typo or you hate what you've written-get to the end and then re-write. Rewriting part way is just writers block playing tricks on you.

reply to post by Agent008


Just to add, in case you want to use that flash drive, it would not survive if the body was that charred. You would be better off finding it on a key chain out in the snow perhaps, or in a plastic bag inside the refrigerator, somewhere where it would in fact have a chance to survive. I may seem picky, but any story needs to take the reader, from their normal existence, to the world you are creating for them, with a high believability factor.

Errors like this will creep in, but they are very bad news while you are setting up the story. Too many in a row can hurt the book as a whole.

Keep writing.

ETA Mentioning 80GB will date the book in just a few years. I try and use different names. You could leave it as it is if he finds a "Crystal Data Storage Unit" rather than a thumb drive if you mention its heat proof nature later on. Having said that, you may want to deliberately date this device, I don't know. Many famous writers were mired in this trap and many old TV series are also now dated by the old reel to reel computer readers and such like. Shows such as the original Star Trek never fell into the trap, or not as much.

P

Well done!! You may have made a few errors but you do have the gift of writing and it did capture my attention and left me wanting to read more.

Most readers are like me, they get so hooked on the story they won't even realize your little mistakes.

You have a talent: pursue it! I would definitely buy your book.

The more you write, your style will define itself; you'll learn all of the technical stuff as you go.
As far as whether or not you have any talent, you answered that question in your title when you stated that you wrote a story; not everyone can write a story.

Keep at it, and enjoy every second of it, because when and if you decide to make writing your vocation, the real challenges begin.

I'll keep it very simple for you; when you write for an audience, you need to keep in mind that every word can and should tell a story. Too many lost words mean nothing but filled pages of , well I don't know. As one watches a movie, one can see, as one reads, one can feel the visual message through words that show a picture.

Thanks to all who replied to this thread, you have all been helpful!

Other than some slight wording/grammatical issues, it seems fine.

For example:
"With a swift motion Paul emptied a small sac of leather into his hand, shriveled green bits of dried herb fell into his palm, he carefully placed it in his wooden pipe and passed it off to Oxford."

I'd change it to:
"With a swift motion Paul emptied a small sac of leather into his hand, shriveled green bits of dried herb falling into his palm. He carefully placed it in his wooden pipe and passed it off to Oxford."

reply to post by ProfessorChaos

I do enjoy it, I read once that you really have to love writting even if you get stuck if you love doing it keep going.

I intend to!

reply to post by lawman27


Thanks! Great tips.

As far as the not being on earth part right off the bat that needs to be there for the story, it gets super crazy later on, I would love to tell you but that would spoil they story

Hmmm, try to make Oxford his friend. Don't simply tell us that's who he is. One of my biggest problems is telling people too much. If Oxford is Paul's friend, it will quickly become apparent in the way they interact and talk to one another. Having one character - Oxford - call another "brother" is generally going to be a big tip off that they are friends.

Wonderful! I would love to hear more of this story!!!

The only advice I would have given, Pheonix has already mentioned. Intriguing story so far. Keep up the good work!!