Critique/feed back for Techno Tanya

AwkwardMD said:

You misuse a lot of words for someone who 'spent a lot of time in academia'.

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Which was only mentioned because while I was there, citing examples was the standard when supporting a claim, and so it's rather ironic that you fail to mention a single example when making your claim here.

Of course, if a hypothetical example that you might present is going to be anything like your previous examples then I daresay you have a lot of work ahead of you. For an example, you've made similar claims in the past about my 'misuse' of the word 'conflate'. Which again, asking if you've conflated completely separate terms or concepts is not a misuse of the word, and yet this hasn't stopped you from imagining to yourself that I might have somehow misused it (and by all means feel free pick up a dictionary if you want to maintain your dissent).

Reminds me of a former question of mine, posted 6/23/2018 at 7:38 PM, that you still have yet to respond to:

beerlovr88 said:

Be honset. Are you not a native English speaker? I only ask because they tend to struggle the most with colliquial phrases and hyperbole, and your constant struggle with these concepts usually result in you imagining that I've misused a term.

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I never claimed one way or the other, but I have no doubt you'll assume without evidence.

AwkwardMD said:

I have no doubt you'll assume with evidence.

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As indicated by all the examples that you've listed where I've done this before? Oh wait I almost fogot... being able to cite examples to support their claim is clearly not everyone's forte around here.

The fact is that at this point you have a verifiable history of making claim after claim without bothering to support it without any evidence whatsoever, and this reminds me of the simple fact that wanting to believe something to be true doesn't make it so. Which again, your verifiable tendencies really aren't all that surprising when considering the mental states of the protagonists that you're to motivated to write about.

Who do you think you are that anyone here needs to answer to you? Like, what is my motivation to engage in your reindeer games?

beerlovr88 said:

Even if it provided a small bit of 'immersion and immediacy' (which I find hard to believe), in terms of general awkwardness I still think it would be vastly inferior to the past tense equivalent.

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I write some of my fiction in the present tense. I like it and feel like it works for my stories, and I don't think it is inferior at all, so long as you do it right. Many of my favourite authors have written beautifully in the present tense: Grace Paley, Paul Auster, Bret Easton Ellis, and so on. I don't understand the criticism of a whole tense. It seems bogus and unhelpful.

You seem caught up on the idea of "immediacy" — that somehow present tense is trying and failing to achieve this. I'd like to ask you what you think that word means.

Bret Easton Ellis' Glamorama is a perfect example of present tense done well.

beerlovr88 said:

And I've repeatedly asked for a specific example that would help support this mysterious claim and to date no one has been able provide one. Electricblue66 tried to provide an example (couldn't link the story without openly questioning my ability to read the story without bias, I might add) and I think there might have been some confusion because he later admits that he 'made no claim that it helped his story be more immediate'.

Again, maybe I've just been brainwashed by all those years I spent in academia where citing examples to support claims was the standard, and all the people here who desperately want to deviate from this trend remind me of the people who wildly parroted that the earth was flat; a lot of great talk but still physically incapable of supporting their claims with anything remotely concrete.

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As an observation, when a new person turns up on an established forum, and the defining things about that person are an air of superiority, a tendency towards belligerence, and a habit of continually belittling other writers here, other forum members are reasonably entitled to wonder, "On what basis does this person give us his opinions, do they have merit, does he know what he's on about?"

So I go to see the body of work that supports such a person's claim to know more about erotica writing than others might, to know more about erotica readers' responses than others do; and...

Oh dear, that's not very convincing, is it? Not very convincing at all.

beerlovr88 cites knowing about writing from experience in academia, which clearly informs his criticism given that academic writing is typically the worst sort of self-important, cant-ridden obfuscation. He has given an opinion, others have rejected that opinion, and he can't let go. Clearly it is only his opinion that matters. That has no place in a discussion forum.

He's a fake, anyway. He has no idea what a laughingstock he makes of himself every time he touts his "background in academia". There isn't much point in engaging with him, except to forestall the possibility that a budding writer might be misled by his flawed ideas.

electricblue66 said:

As an observation, when a new person turns up on an established forum, and the defining things about that person are an air of superiority, a tendency towards belligerence, and a habit of continually belittling other writers here, other forum members are reasonably entitled to wonder, "On what basis does this person give us his opinions, do they have merit, does he know what he's on about?"

So I go to see the body of work that supports such a person's claim to know more about erotica writing than others might, to know more about erotica readers' responses than others do; and...

Oh dear, that's not very convincing, is it? Not very convincing at all.

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You were so curious about my online personality that you decided to read stories that were written 10 years ago and now you want to publicly declare that you weren't impressed?

I know you're excited but try not to get ahead of yourself. My latest story is posted and you have my unequivocal blessing to disparage any aspect of that story as you see fit and then cite these perceived flaws as evidence that my criticism towards others is unwarranted.

GrandTeton said:

beerlovr88 cites knowing about writing from experience in academia, which clearly informs his criticism

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Hate to be a stickler here but technically I merely speculated that perhaps I had been brainwashed by my experience in academia, not that the experience itself in any way validated any view or opinion that I might have presented. You're more than welcome to disagree with any view that I've presented, and all I ask in return is that you don't make up things that I've said during this process.

Diarrhoea in the past, present or future?

Hell of a lot of written diarrhoea in this thread. It’s like skiing down a piste covered in food that has been previously eaten.

As for the tension that’s been created. If the story is a good read then does the tense matter?

cinching up my big boy pants

While it might be helpful for others if a new thread was created whereby the discussion might help any authors looking for the same help, I'm only addressing it here, as it directly involves my own story, and everyone harped on my usage.


Ellipses and semicolons:
MY UNDERSTANDING (another one of those ridiculous, redundant libertard caveats) is; that that an ellipses is properly used to convey when, what follows, is commonly understood and doesn't require repeating (to save space I suppose).
It is also be used to convey where a quoted statement has been reduced; to address only that which is of interest. In other words, it is used to express there is more text either before and/or after, which isn't being mentioned on purpose.

CREATIVELY, by extension, I use an ellipsis to show a character being interrupted mid-sentence, or when someone speaking trails off; to express to the reader (and the entities who review/post our stories) that a sentence is being purposely left unfinished. That something to be said, has been reduced.

Also, CREATIVELY, I use it to describe a poignant pause; something beyond what a comma would note. Not really something that a reader would find useful, but what MAY be significant to a Voice Actor who is reading the manuscript.

edit: However, Grammar girl, my favorite go to reference, would seem to indicate that ellipses should be used sparingly, although the way I have used them SEEMS to be correct.

Additionally, Charles Schultz (Peanuts artist) and Herb Caen, to name two, made flagrant use of ellipses as a form of style. Herb Caen, if you don't know, like me, who he is; supposedly came up with the term "three dot journalism." Granted, Journalism and Art, are not the same as literature, but as with literature; allow for creative uses.

A semicolon is a more nebulous article, as MY UNDERSTANDING (another ridiculous, redundant libertard caveat) is that it, contrary to a colon, is a summation of a sentence, and what follows can be a whole sentence; in and of itself. Opposed to a comma; which denotes a break in a sentence between a sentence, and sentence fragment, and a colon; which precedes a list of variables.

I just went to my favorite "reference sheet" grammar girl, and found it is much more. I still don't think I have used it incorrectly.

Please explain if you see it differently; I'm not saying I am completely right in every use in my story. Just that I feel validated that my understanding more or less coincides with a more reputable source.

LWulf said:

A semicolon is a more nebulous article, as MY UNDERSTANDING (another ridiculous, redundant libertard caveat) is that it, contrary to a colon, is a summation of a sentence, and what follows can be a whole sentence; in and of itself. Opposed to a comma; which denotes a break in a sentence between a sentence, and sentence fragment, and a colon; which precedes a list of variables..

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Is this paragraph and the use of semicolons therein a joke or a form of performance art? I'm not even being sarcastic.

I looked at your story in terms of the use of ellipses. I intended to look at the semicolons too, but the ellipses were so overwhelming that, after a while, I couldn't see anything else. Which leads to the major problem I have with their use in your story--I started reading the story too and the ellipses got in the way and I stopped reading the story for content.

Until I got overwhelmed, I was thinking that, except for one use, they were done properly and, for a couple of paragraphs I thought they were being used effectively. They weren't formatted properly for publishing (which, as a publisher's editor, bugged me in ways that wouldn't bother most readers) and there was one grammar mistake in usage. (Might have been more. I gave up; I didn't intend to give up on the read.)

The incorrect use is putting an ellipsis at the beginning of a paragraph. You apparently are trying to convey there's a pause in someone responding to what was said/done in the previous paragraph, but this just isn't the way to do it. You should write in somehow that there's a pause, usually with something added to give an idea why there's a pause. Ellipses just aren't used that way.

The incorrect grammar use is that the ellipsis is not terminal punctuation. You've put an ellipsis between two sentences in a few places without providing the terminal punctuation for the first sentence.

There was at least one instance of an incomplete ellipsis, which may have been a typo (..?). The ellipsis is the three dots, not two. Two dots is just a mistake.

Now the technical problem in your rendering. A publishing ellipsis is space/dot/space/dot/space/dot (and then space unless you're running into a quote mark and then you omit the space). The computer ellipsis is not a publishing ellipsis. It's not too serious if you don't do this completely right in published material like on Literotica (and most don't do it right here, so it isn't something most readers will be bothered by). But even the computer ellipsis puts a space before and after (except, as noted, when it runs up against a quote mark). You habitually didn't provide a space before the ellipsis. If you really want to use the ellipsis a lot, become an expert in what it is and how it's formatted.

But the real problem for me in your story is that you used the ellipsis so much that I stopped reading the content and didn't go to the end (and stopped looking for semicolons altogether to assess how they were being used).

And that's a problem for an author.

I did have another problem off the top that made me almost not start reading it at all. This is an "older than 18" adult site right off the top. The disclaimer slug on the top made me feel like you were going to be overly pedantic in the story as well. It's completely superfluous for Literotica. A reader who doesn't know everything you provided there already shouldn't be tooling around on Literotica at all.

My comment in general on this thread and at least one more thread that is currently running is to suggest again that people who regularly give critiques on this board really shouldn't be putting their material up for critique here themselves. Most of what they generally get will be fake suck-up comments to get the commenter favorable critique. But they'll also get "I'm a better critiquer then you are so I'm going to tear your work apart" crap--as has been happening on this board over the last couple of weeks. Then to try to hold onto their credentials for critiquing they'll "I know better than you do" lash back. What's going on here in regular critiquers hauling off at each other is not constructive for much of anyone. This is especially so here because some critiquers currently here are going to argue their half knowledge until the end of time in endless nasty slugfests.

thewinedarksea said:

Is this paragraph and the use of semicolons therein a joke or a form of performance art? I'm not even being sarcastic.

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Maybe. All three uses of the semicolon in that are incorrect uses of semicolons.

KeithD said:

Maybe. All three uses of the semicolon in that are incorrect uses of semicolons.

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LWulf, you've just cited a good article from a great source that comprehensively shows why your use of semicolons in your forum post AND in your story is wrong. I really don't know what more we could tell you!

thewinedarksea said:

Is this paragraph and the use of semicolons therein a joke or a form of performance art? I'm not even being sarcastic.

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I am really starting to believe that he is pulling our legs.

Thanks for your review SR71. I won't go into what I have already stated and restated in this thread, ad nauseam.

KeithD said:

There was at least one instance of an incomplete ellipsis, which may have been a typo (..?). The ellipsis is the three dots, not two. Two dots is just a mistake.

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Thank you for giving so much thought in pointing out what is an obvious mistake.

KeithD said:

I did have another problem off the top that made me almost not start reading it at all. This is an "older than 18" adult site right off the top. The disclaimer slug on the top made me feel like you were going to be overly pedantic in the story as well. It's completely superfluous for Literotica. A reader who doesn't know everything you provided there already shouldn't be tooling around on Literotica at all.

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Apparently while you are a "publisher's editor," you aren't familiar with legal matters, otherwise, your observation wouldn't have been noted.

KeithD said:

My comment in general on this thread and at least one more thread that is currently running is to suggest again that people who regularly give critiques on this board really shouldn't be putting their material up for critique here themselves. Most of what they generally get will be fake suck-up comments to get the commenter favorable critique. But they'll also get "I'm a better critiquer then you are so I'm going to tear your work apart" crap--as has been happening on this board over the last couple of weeks. Then to try to hold onto their credentials for critiquing they'll "I know better than you do" lash back. What's going on here in regular critiquers hauling off at each other is not constructive for much of anyone. This is especially so here because some critiquers currently here are going to argue their half knowledge until the end of time in endless nasty slugfests.

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Thanks for pointing out your views that people freely exchanging critiques is problematic, and how things are going on in other threads. I'm sure if you state it and restate it again several more times in various threads, people will start listening to you.

I'm not even being sarcastic.

I think your posts speak for themselves, LW.

There is an interesting, unusual erotic story here, but it's obscured by a lot of stylistic choices you've made and basic punctuation and other errors. They're so distracting that it makes it a lot more difficult to appreciate the story. Many of these issues already have been raised. My points:

1. Tense. There's nothing wrong with present tense, in theory. But your story is a textbook example of the hazards of its use, because your tense is all over the place. You shift at times to past tense. You use past and present perfect tense. You use the conditional. Your use of tense is not consistent. For example, this sentence: " Although very gifted, Tanya could be a little naive when it comes to human interactions, including sexuality." In this sentence, "could" should be "can."

I don't see how the use of present tense in this particular story advanced an artistic purpose that would not have been served equally well by past tense. There are many excellent works of fiction told in present tense, but there's a good reason why most works of fiction are in past tense. One is that it's easier. You are less likely to make mistakes. In the fourth paragraph of your story, you have three different tenses. It's just too complicated. Adopting past tense would make it simpler and minimize the risk of errors.

2. Dialogue. Your story repeatedly runs afoul of basic dialogue conventions. The basic way to render what a person says is this:

"I love you," he said.

It's OK to mix things up, but your story goes too far. There's a good thread on dialogue tags in the Author's Hangout that's worth reading. Your story is a good example of the hazards of the over-creative use of dialogue tags. The consequence is that to the reader, the author is intruding too much on the story. This story would be better if you got rid of a lot of the creative dialogue tags and adverbs that follow the tags, and just used "he/she said" or nothing at all. You also need to be consistent in the punctuation that you use for dialogue. You write:

"...Yes, yes, I know." Tanya sighs in exasperation.

This one line of dialogue violates several rules. It shouldn't start with an ellipsis. The word "know" should be followed by a comma, not a period. And the dialogue tag would be better if it was simply "Tanya said." "Sighs in exasperation" doesn't really add anything. It's implicit in the four words of dialogue.

3. Ellipses. If you got rid of every single ellipsis in this story, the story would lose nothing. It would be much better. They're dramatically overused. They're distracting. The use of an ellipsis to indicate a pause or interruption in the speaker's speech is something to be used sparingly, if at all.

SimonDoom said:

"...Yes, yes, I know." Tanya sighs in exasperation.

This one line of dialogue violates several rules. It shouldn't start with an ellipsis. The word "know" should be followed by a comma, not a period.

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I think the original period here is fine. (The tense is distracting and affected, though.) There's a voiced declaration and then there's a description of her action. I think it's fine to keep them in separate sentences. Much better than using "sighs" as a dialogue slug.

KeithD said:

I think the original period here is fine. (The tense is distracting and affected, though.) There's a voiced declaration and then there's a description of her action. I think it's fine to keep them in separate sentences. Much better than using "sighs" as a dialogue slug.

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I read "sighs" as a tag, but on re-reading it I think you're right. It's not. It's a sentence following an un-tagged piece of dialogue.

But I think "sighs in exasperation" is a cliche, and, like most cliches, an unnecessary and intrusive one. The sentence would be better written this way:

"Yes, yes, I know," she said.

The repetition of "yes" conveys a sense of impatience or exasperation. That's enough to say what the author wants to say.

Yes, but if you're being paid by the word . . .

And I'm sure from LW's attitude that he must be.

SimonDoom said:

But I think "sighs in exasperation" is a cliche, and, like most cliches, an unnecessary and intrusive one.

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"A tautological redundancy, what's more," he repeated himself, needlessly. "And I'll say it again to make sure."

See, it's easy, when you know how .

Simon, I've embarked on my fourth attempt to get through the Alexandria Quartet, and thought of you. Not as a alternative to Justine or Melissa, mind, but because the fucker shifts tenses constantly.... I wouldn't have noticed except for your earlier comments. And if it's good enough for Durrell, I reserve my rights. So there .

electricblue66 said:

Simon, I've embarked on my fourth attempt to get through the Alexandria Quartet, and thought of you. Not as a alternative to Justine or Melissa, mind, but because the fucker shifts tenses constantly.... I wouldn't have noticed except for your earlier comments. And if it's good enough for Durrell, I reserve my rights. So there .

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Hmmm. Knew the model for Durrell's Justine. Rented the mountainside villa he did in Bellapais, northern Cyprus, where he wrote some of the quartet and wrote a series of six novels there myself trying to emulate his plotting style. But I don't remember flip-flopping on tenses.

KeithD said:

Hmmm. Knew the model for Durrell's Justine. Rented the mountainside villa he did in Bellapais, northern Cyprus, where he wrote some of the quartet and wrote a series of six novels there myself trying to emulate his plotting style. But I don't remember flip-flopping on tenses.

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He'll write a long block in present tense, then a long reminiscence in past. Then there'll be a long swath of narrative when the narrator's reading the journal he finds. So it's not flippity-flop within a paragraph (those long, endless paragraphs!) - which in fairness is what Simon noticed in one of my stories. You might remember a thread a while back where several of us commented, "yes I unconsciously do that too."