Beat me down with your honest opinion (on writing)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Here’s a SMALL sample of a story. It’s pretty much at the begining…
"*My grandmother always warned me not to go in and bother him but I’d somehow end up in there talking to him anyway, but always with a prescription for caution.
His great fun was trying to confuse me. He did this because it was fun for him I’m sure, but also to get me to think on my own, to question everything, especially what I trusted most. Another activity he’d have me do was to read the newspaper and it’s a habit I’ve never fallen out of. I’d read articles and pick out the most interesting ones to discuss with him; ‘Man drives over fifty foot rock face, lives to tell about it’, ‘Divorce beginning upward trend’ ‘Rogue twister attacks small Canadian village, four dead’. He’d challenge me not only on the stories I picked but on why I picked them.

   My grandfather was a tall man, bald toward his finish, with just enough thin black hair for the sides of head. He was very broad and heavy in his older years but not obese. The extra weight complimented him and matched his strong intentional voice. He had a wide thick neck bracing beneath his large head. His features were strong. With that polish nose he always peddled a serious expression and if he laughed it was always a controlled one. He favored slacks and a sweater with modest bedroom slippers. I was still a young boy when he died.*

AND

*As I’d get nearer to the river the litter would even dissipate in to just a slight erratic nuisance and then disappear altogether giving way to high yellow grass which yielded to sticker bushes spilling over with rabbits and bees. And finally, it was there. At my feet the same river George Washington crossed with his men; not the very spot, granted, but I didn’t care. To me it was the same smooth melodious breathing river agelessly gliding by before me right now in the heart of this metropolis. Millions upon millions of gallons of water quietly sneaked past me, drawn by its deadly gripping attraction to the concealed daylight moon. If I were lucky I’d get there just as the tide was going out so I could survey the rock-strewn banks as if I were the first man to ever walk there. At this moment, I was Americus Vespucci, the only person on the entire continent.

I remember how dejectedly absent the riverside always was of people. It was sad that this forgotten treasure lay discarded in the midst of a bustling compassionless city. The earliest inhabitants were children to this river. The river nurtured them like a newborn baby. Now it was not even a backdrop to the city but just a dumping ground with pipes shamelessly leading straight from the factories onto its banks. Did we abandon her so mindlessly in the hope of forgetting our savage past? Why didn’t we value her wealth and raw beauty? Why were we destroying her?

For me personally it was a good thing that this place was so empty because it always left me free to act out any fantasy I wanted without the judging, unwelcome eye of another person. I was an actor and this was my stage. On the day of my first breathing attack, the river was empty as usual. This time I was walking along pretending to be a Spanish explorer who had just made landfall onto this uncharted riverbank after a tumultuous journey from my motherland. Except to me it was an ocean not a river and an island, not an un-appreciating and bored city. I disembarked my wooden vessel and surveyed the landscape. I observed that there were no signs of native tribes and it was probably safe to explore. I couldn’t have walked further than a quarter-mile when I discovered a massive block of marble lying on its side amongst the rocks. It was raw but still shiny white with luminous black veins intensely dispersing themselves into a wild display. I could not believe my eyes.*

2

wow

riveting man

3

Put down the thesaurus and concentrate on basic grammar.

If you red-pencilled that, it would be illegible, and it’s asking a lot to ask one person to edit it for you. Here’s a few tips, though: In the first sentence, establish that the subject is the grandfather up front. Drop “prescription for caution,” that’s awful. “I’m sure that he did this because it was fun for him, but…” All twisters are rogue, and even newspaper editors would flinch at a headline like that. As a matter of style, I think it would be unusual for a tornado to be referred to as a “twister” in Canada, too, but that’s a lesser concern.

I’m sure I’d end up feeling like a total bastard if I tried to help you any more. :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Some comments – and only since you asked.

It’s okay to use techniques that make your writing less clear, but there should be a reason for it. You can obfuscate your subject, if there’s a reason to do so – for example, if it’s a mystery story and the identity of a character must be kept secret for a while, or if the identity of the character is a “twist” to the story, to be introduced later. But if you just sort of forgot to mention who or what the subject is, then it’s weak writing. There’s no discernable reason why your grandfather is not identified as your grandfather until the second paragraph, and then only if the reader makes the leap of assuming that’s who you were talkinga about above.

Similarly, run-on sentences make your writing less clear but, again, may be excusable – if, for example, you are speaking in the voice of a character who would talk that way, like certain regional accents or, maybe, the voice of a small child. You have run-on sentences, but they are not excusable on such grounds. The voice is yours, and one assumes you don’t really talk like that. You then intersperse very short sentences, which only makes the narrative even more disjointed. Example (of both): " As I’d get nearer to the river the litter would even dissipate in to just a slight erratic nuisance and then disappear altogether giving way to high yellow grass which yielded to sticker bushes spilling over with rabbits and bees. And finally, it was there." Too many clauses and too much action in the first sentence (getting nearer, dissipating, disappearing, giving way, yielding, spilling over), nothing going on in the second.

You are over-using adjectives (“smooth melodious breathing river agelessly gliding by,” “deadly gripping attraction to the concealed daylight moon”), and sometimes you’re using the wrong adjective altogether – how can something be “intensely disbursed”?

And don’t use a subjunctive or conditional tense to tell your story – “he would challenge me,” “I would get near the river.” It’s awkward and almost always unnecessary. Use the simple past tense or, if you must, the simple present tense (harder to do without sounding stilted).

On the up side, you seem to have a gift for description and both excerpts set up situations that might lead somewhere interesting. Just remember that simple and clean is better, unless you’re Thomas Pynchon which, let’s face it, you’re not. :wink:

I obviously didn’t sugarcoat this, but I assume when you solicit criticism you want honesty without meanness, and I hope I haven’t been mean.

5

Time (and memory) permitting, I’ll give this a more apt and thorough shot tomorrow (er, later today), but as it is near 2 AM here, some brief thoughts:

  1. What Jodi said. Make the writing style match the purpose. If you are trying, in a piece, to convey utter confusion and a pseudo-apathetic nature with lack of a solid base with regard to the foundation of life, you are probably best served not to do so when you are talking about dissecting a squid unless your character has some sort of moral dilemna. If, on the other hand, you are trying to channel Holden Caulfield, you are in the right place.

  2. Don’t be like my friend Mark, who thought that big words make a person sound/look smart. Being able to use words properly does that; using big words just makes you look like you’re trying to impress. For that matter, not a few management and middle-management folks could do to learn that simple lesson.

  3. Learn the fine art of punctuation; learn how to use it to group your words, learn how and when to use it to make something clear, and more importantly, how you can use it so you don’t end up writing a paragraph where a line or two would do. Padding for a school paper is one thing; your teachers are paid to read what you write. Padding for a story is another; ain’t nobody but an editor paid to wade through someone who’s writing forever because s/he thinks quantity is more important than quality.

  4. Write a lot of random stuff. Not everyone is good at sketching a tall, dark mysterious stranger standing at the corner. And not everyone can contain the effervescent joy that is being a happy fuzzy bunny with a group of other happy fuzzy bunnies. Just write, even if it’s to say you’re bored or life sucks or whatnot. You’ll discover, if not what you’re good at, what you suck at, and this is an important thing to realize as soon as possible.

  5. Learn (and again, a lot of people could do to learn this) the difference between writing a character’s speech and writing narrative/description. Not all characters are able to phrase their sentences mid-thought so that no prepositions end up at the ends of sentences. Children are not always able to properly (or even at all) employ both the predicate nominative, the passive voice and the subjunctive; there’s an episode of Tool Time where Brad, the oldest (and not so bright) kid, is about eight years old and he uses the subjunctive. Totally unbelievable. Something like “Mom, were I to do that I’d have asked you!” Stewie from Family Guy talks like that, maybe (except it’d be more of a couched defense of trying to bomb Paraguay or something). Mathilda, maybe. Generic well-meaning but kinda dumb kid? Not so much.

6

Iampunha, jodi & Mr Mudd,

Thanks for the opinions. After reading your replies and looking at it again, It’s a pretty accurate asessment.

The one thing I’d like to clear up is that the samples I posted are two seperate parts from two seperate pages. The grandfather is introduced in the paragraph before that one but I was trying to keep the post as short as possible. Sorry for the confusion on that.

I’m hoping that as I write on I’ll get better. (I’m actually about fifty pages past that now.) Then I can go back and correct it.

I can see how I was overly decriptive and tried forcing stuff (like prescription for caution) that didn’t need to be forced.

Larry, that was a good point about the “rogue twister” and that’s coming out. “Tornado” is fine on its own.

Jodi, thanks for taking the time to write all that out. Hopefully it’s not lost on me.
…You too LM & Iam

…Also, this is from later on in that same story if you guys want to have a crack at it.

The attendant was right. There was nothing but long empty stretches of road, which made paying attention especially hard. Each time I stopped for gas or to use the bathroom I’d check with someone to see if I was still on course for Regina. This package was really burdening my thoughts. So much so that I managed to overshoot my long anticipated exit by more than fifty miles.

When I began to see signs for Medicine Hat, I knew I had gone too far. I pulled off the road to check my map again. I was making such good time that it really bothered me to think that I should turn around and go back. I looked at the package for a while and wondered what could possibly be so important that it couldn’t be written off as a loss.
I thought, “If a total stranger trusted me with it, how important could it be?”
That was that end of it. I threw the package into the back seat and never paid another thought to it. I was coming upon the beautiful Saskatchewan River valley. Now what was important was the fact that Medicine Hat boasted the world’s largest teepee and after making it this far, I was going to see it.

7

I’m not going to comment on the snippets in the OP because I think they’ve been adequately discussed above. For this latest passage two things stick out - the overuse of was and I. Strong writing uses action verbs more than being verbs. It also consists of a variety of sentence structure. Subject verb subject verb subject verb bores the reader with repetitiveness and distracts from the overall story.

8

These two bits of advice from the same person. Or should I say “two-bit” advice. :rolleyes:

9

Capitalize “Polish,” please.

Other than that, what they all said. ::points up::

10

A few things jumped out at me.

These headlines all seemed sort of bland to me. There are more interesting things in the paper (I read a story yesterday about a dead whale exploding). I’d replace at least one of yours with something more exciting.

“Deliberate” is probably a better word than “Intentional.” Lose the word “beneath” (“bracing his large head”). I’ve no idea what you mean when you say “peddled a serious expression.”

There’s some good description here. You just need to prune away some of the excess. You also let words slip in that don’t need to be there, like “even dissipate in.” “Dissipate” is fine on its own. There are other points I could make, but other posters have already made them.

A note about commas - they provide a sort of a pause as you’re reading. Say I wrote a sentence that really needed commas but did not in fact use any commas at all just because I didn’t feel like it or did not know how to use them correctly. When you read it, it sounds really breathless and fast. However, if I should use commas where they belong, it slows things down, making my writing easier to read.

I always give people the same tip, but that’s because I honestly think it works: READ IT ALOUD. Go back and read it to yourself. If something sounds awkward, play with it until it sounds good. Change words around, take them out, break the sentence into bits, adjust the punctuation - do what you need to do. When it’s right, it’ll sound right.

Best of luck to you, Rooves.

11

Try this site. You can post your work and people will review it for you.

www.writing.com

12

Thanks Beavis. I signed up there and have been poking around. It’s laid out a little weird but hopefully I get used to it.
I posted a short story called “The rooster” …I think my username is sophisticated monkey.
If you’re a poster there I’d like to read some of your stuff.

Thanks Ninjas, for taking the time to write that all out. I appreciate it and I’m taking notes.

BuckleberryFerry, P olish.

13

Just this quoted part:

  1. It strangely devoids of emotions.
  2. The writing is on the obtuse side.
  3. Bad tenses.
  4. Sentences do not vary enough in length.
  5. Need more imagery (concrete scenes and descriptions instead of abstract terms).
14

From the first example, I’ll agree with the rest, but add the first two paragraphs should be reversed. “My grandmother always warned me not to go in and bother him” – who are you referring to? The second paragraph is a better beginning.

15

First of all, Jodi gives some excellent advice. Heed that.

Be as simple as possible and true to your own voice throughout the entire story. Don’t try to copy the lyricism and voice of other authors. Being lyrical in a story is not really necessary though sometimes that’s the way an author writes, and unless that’s way you write and how you think while writing, it’s not going to sound original. When I was in English (and I think this is something that’s been published a few times, too), my professor told us the first day, “You’re no Hemmingway, so don’t try to write like him. Write like you think, not like other people think.”

Establish what you’re trying to say in as clear terms as possible. The first paragraph is the most important part of a story - it’s what draws people in. If it’s not direct and clear, and the reader has to plow through a couple of paragraphs to find out what or who the story is about, they will likely never find out because their interest will already have been lost during the first few sentences.

Also, always check for grammar. It’s one thing to have poor grammar in dialogue - few people always use proper grammar when speaking - but it’s another thing entirely to have poor grammar in descriptive prose. Writing fiction does not allow the author to eschew the rules of grammar.

You do have a solid foundation, however, for a very interesting piece. I’d recommend doing some writing exercises on a regular basis. Sounds obvious, but if you’d like to be a writer, the best thing for you to do is write every day.

16

Overlyverbose,

Yes. Yes and yes. I actually bit off way more than I could chew on that one. Instead of trying to write a really long story, I’m going to practice by writing small pieces. Just a paragraph or two for fun and when I get the hang of it I’ll expand from there.

Thanks, everyone else, for the comments.

I posted a really short story in Mpsms called “The creature” if anyone cares to go over and comment before it slithers down the page. (really really short…I promise.)

17

Given A) the forum (a job in identification with which you obviously continue to struggle) and B) that the advice was accepted by the OP, I’d say your first remark was better. And if you believe I sounded like Mark with the first part of my post, then unless you are prepared to thumb through that sentence and show me where I used words improperly, I’d advise that you sit on it instead;)

18

Think power and economy. For instance, your passage…

I remember how dejectedly absent the riverside always was of people. It was sad that this forgotten treasure lay discarded in the midst of a bustling compassionless city.
could be restated as…
Once host to family picnics and moonlit strolls, today the riverside is dead–and with it, the city I once yadda yadda…

Better yet, don’t tell people about the sadness of a forgotten river or compassionless city, show them. Moreover, stacking modifiers (bustling compassionless city) weakens, not strengthens, writing.

19

I just want to second what overlyverbose said. Your attempts to describe things uniquely and lyrically make the whole thing come across as unnatural and labored. Some writers are poets, but many more are simply engaging storytellers. Don’t try to be a poet.