My story has been hacked

[sr71plt]

I think your ability to help new readers is great, but I have to buy into Sk's grandiose and self-serving comment with these extracts from Story Feedback;

Detailed critical analysis;

I haven't read the chapter so I don't know how realistic it is in this regard,


Grammatical and editorial advice to new writer;

Also, full sentences aren't required for fiction, and incomplete sentences can often be used to good effect

Full review on new writer’s story;

Oh, Lord, yes. Nothing scares off potential readers faster than beginning by telling them the reasons they may not want to read the story.

I rest my case;



Actually, you've said it a bit too often. ALL stories don't have to follow a set formula. There are lots of ways to skin the short story mode; if there were only one, what a dull literary form it would be. Technically (in what is being taught in creative writing programs today), all a short story need have is a dilemma and some form of change--but the pro writers even mess around with that idea in search of fresh approaches to the medium. (And no, the characters don't have to have names for the story to succeed, either.)

Remind me not tobuy your books.

Umm, yes. If you are suggesting that these are bad or unuseful comments for me to have made (regardless of having taken them out of context), then guilty as charged.

And if you wouldn't want to buy my books based on that last snippet (which would be dumb, anyway, wouldn't it, as the comments are on short stories, not books), I'd suggest you not buy novels being written now at all--and certainly not try to read any of them.

Apples and oranges on the naming of characters, however. As I've posted before not naming characters is sustainable only in brief short stories. Let's not claim I've made a connection on that with books.

You seem to have a bee up your nose on this. I suggest some calming tea.

 

[sr71plt]

I think your ability to help new readers is great, but I have to buy into Sk's grandiose and self-serving comment with these extracts from Story Feedback;

Detailed critical analysis;

I haven't read the chapter so I don't know how realistic it is in this regard,


Grammatical and editorial advice to new writer;

Also, full sentences aren't required for fiction, and incomplete sentences can often be used to good effect

Full review on new writer’s story;

Oh, Lord, yes. Nothing scares off potential readers faster than beginning by telling them the reasons they may not want to read the story.

I rest my case;



Actually, you've said it a bit too often. ALL stories don't have to follow a set formula. There are lots of ways to skin the short story mode; if there were only one, what a dull literary form it would be. Technically (in what is being taught in creative writing programs today), all a short story need have is a dilemma and some form of change--but the pro writers even mess around with that idea in search of fresh approaches to the medium. (And no, the characters don't have to have names for the story to succeed, either.)

Remind me not tobuy your books.

Got an inclination to be fair and balanced on this Elfin? I do, on the rare occasion that I take/have time to read a story under review, do give a full assessment (and I repeat, when I'm just dealing with one issue and haven't given a full read, I'm fair enough to state that). While zeroing in on your nits, let's acknowledge the occasional treatment like this recent one. Are you really being fair?


"I’m taken with your “hook” for this story series (a guardian angel progressively teaching sex to a barely legal twink). The story weaving is more than a little awkward, for reasons already mentioned, but this has a good foundation, and its shortfalls in technique and presentation shouldn’t overshadow its good “bones” significantly.

"As you write more, you should be able to write more elegantly and smoothly. I think Varian nailed it (with all of her comments, actually) that your background setup is too choppy and uses too much “telling” where it could effectively use “showing” (as she says, showing rather than telling how the male classmates treat Quinn in the locker room—you do show how he’s treated in the classroom later, though, so you can do this). The necessary background is all there, like the explanation for why the father isn’t going to be around while Galen is indoctrinating Quinn—but it’s more or less just thrown out there in choppy little separate explanations rather than woven smoothly into a fabric. The situations/scenes are also a little cartoonish. I think you could construct less clichéd and garrish, more fresh and subtle imaging.

"Much, much, much more can/should be done in dialogue in fully developed scenes in which everything serves the main and/or minor threads of the story (this helps you show rather than tell).

"When this is added to problems with punctuation, spelling, and slightly off word choices here and there (e.g., Galen’s a guardian angel; it’s jarring to have him do anything “evilly”), your chapter 1 gets off to a rocky start—the worst place to be rocky. Your chapter 2 seems much better in all of these aspects.

"You use 3rd person omniscient voice, which is OK, although it’s considered pretty outdated. The British are using it a lot more than the Americans are. This means there is a narrator telling the story from above the action, but, in the omniscient part, the reader is told the feelings and inner thoughts of all characters; the reader isn’t put inside the skin of just one of the characters. Having chosen this presentation technique, though, I don’t think you spend enough time/word images relating how the characters feel about anything—especially the sex—thus still giving us the “telling” feeling rather than the “showing” feeling. You lose out on the intensity of intimacy your reader can hook into here, I think.

"Since this is a multiparter, there’s disappointment that you don’t develop everything more and make the transitions more seamless; you rush from ticking off one element to the next, particularly in the “telling” background development at the beginning. In contrast, I felt I was getting too much background on the nature of guardian angels in chapter 2. I wanted to see the next level of sex education. (But the fact that I wanted the story to get on with it meant you were being successful in pulling me into the heart of what your story is all about.)

"As noted, the shortcomings that hit me at the beginning of chapter 1 started falling away (at least in my perception) as you developed into chapter 2—at which point I had to start looking for nits to pick rather than having them screaming at me.

"I’ll be back to read the next chapter, and if this is developing into the education Galen is providing being comprehensive and then transferring Quinn to more human fare and developing him from the subprime twink of early chapter 1 to an accomplished lover of interesting scenarios and positions, I’ll probably continue to read and appreciate your series. (Your sex scenes are done well enough to arouse.)

"Some nits to pick that jumped out at me:

"Chapter 1

1. After the first section break, you start off with “Quinn woke up the next morning,” but what came before wasn’t about a specific day. A jarring, awkward transition—unnecessarily so.

2. Quinn’s father asks Quinn about the moaning he’d done in the night. You then say he knew it was because Quinn was having a wet dream but he didn’t mention that because he didn’t want to embarrass Quinn. The motivation is off here. If he didn’t want to embarrass Quinn, and he knew what the moaning was about, he wouldn’t have asked him about the moaning in the first place. In fact all of the father’s analysis of Quinn’s problems seemed rushed and simplistic.

3. You render “father’s” as a plural. This is possessive, not plural.


Chapter 2

1. “Galen manouvered himself so that he was straddling Quinn’s thighs; and without any warning engulfed Quinn’s cock in the warmth of his mouth.” I can’t image how you can straddle someone’s thighs and reach their cock with your mouth. The very fact that I stopped reading to try to figure out the contortions necessary to accomplish this meant you’d lost me from the story you were trying to weave, if only momentarily. This isn’t good.

2. “his eyes were clothes.” Presumably you mean “his eyes were closed.” / “In case you decide to peak.” Presumably you mean “In case you decide to peek.” / “your given the test.” Presumably you mean “you’re given the test.” False images like this ruin the fabric of absorption in the story you are trying to weave around your reader."

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Apples and oranges on the naming of characters, however. As I've posted before not naming characters is sustainable only in brief short stories. Let's not claim I've made a connection on that with books.

It would be quite a feat, to write an entire novel without naming your protagonist, and not have the reader realize until it was all over "Oh my god, I don't even know so-and-so's name!"

Is there one out there, I wonder?

 

[sr71plt]

Sr, I have not responded to you in months. I don't read what you post. I don't think about you at all.

Yet apparently (if this thread is typical of you) you still frequently lump me in with "the gang" as being someone who is constantly attacking you for every little thing. You dredged up the "mob mentality" term again, and placed Selena in the same category? Apparently you still denigrate any advice given, as if no one but you is qualified to help newbie AH members. Now you're accusing people on this thread of voting down your stories, for heaven's sake.

If I truly gave a damn I'd check back through some of your posts to demonstrate how often you attack others, even while you're claiming complete innocence. And even when it is presented to you in black and white (as Selena did) you somehow can not see what others clearly can.

"Cyber-yapping drones?" Fuck you.

Leave me alone. Stop harassing me. Stay away from me.

No rewriting of thread history, Sweets. You jumped in out of the blue with your usual jab. Your choice/action entirely.

 

[sr71plt]

It would be quite a feat, to write an entire novel without naming your protagonist, and not have the reader realize until it was all over "Oh my god, I don't even know so-and-so's name!"

Is there one out there, I wonder?

I doubt it. I said it wasn't a good technique for a book (or anything but a very short short story--which I've done myself and gotten good reviews for it).

Is there a point here I've missed?

 

[cantdog]

Yes - most odd; when I raised the point at the time, nobody could offer any sensible reason. Perhaps the person who vetted it had an anti-British bias?

Quite possibly, it was a subtle format problem, as for example curly quotes, which at one time generated the "spelling" blurb as the reason. How long ago was it?

 

[cloudy]

Sr, I have not responded to you in months. I don't read what you post. I don't think about you at all.

Yet apparently (if this thread is typical of you) you still frequently lump me in with "the gang" as being someone who is constantly attacking you for every little thing. You dredged up the "mob mentality" term again, and placed Selena in the same category? Apparently you still denigrate any advice given, as if no one but you is qualified to help newbie AH members. Now you're accusing people on this thread of voting down your stories, for heaven's sake.

If I truly gave a damn I'd check back through some of your posts to demonstrate how often you attack others, even while you're claiming complete innocence. And even when it is presented to you in black and white (as Selena did) you somehow can not see what others clearly can.

"Cyber-yapping drones?" Fuck you.

Leave me alone. Stop harassing me. Stay away from me.

He can drop me in a group with you anytime.

(methinks sr is overcompensating for an...ahem, personal problem. Bless his heart)

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Quite possibly, it was a subtle format problem, as for example curly quotes, which at one time generated the "spelling" blurb as the reason. How long ago was it?

Actually, that's what I was thinking... that perhaps it didn't have anything to do with the spelling after all?

 

[sr71plt]

(methinks sr is overcompensating for an...ahem, personal problem. Bless his heart)

Can't fault you on consistency, can we?

 

[zschachwitz]

Quite possibly, it was a subtle format problem, as for example curly quotes, which at one time generated the "spelling" blurb as the reason. How long ago was it?

Actually, that's what I was thinking... that perhaps it didn't have anything to do with the spelling after all?

Thank you for these thoughts: this would have happened in about April/May 2006. Speaking from memory, I wrote it in MS Word in my default font of Times New Roman.

K

 

[starrkers]

Thank you for these thoughts: this would have happened in about April/May 2006. Speaking from memory, I wrote it in MS Word in my default font of Times New Roman.

K

Intriguing. I started submitting stories in December 2006. I use English-English (it's all I know), MS Word in Times New Roman.
You must've just caught a bot-glitch or something.

 

[cantdog]

Yeah, there's tons of English, Canadian, Kiwi, Scots, and whatnot writers here. That's what makes this story so weird. Ah, well. It got posted. You may have fixed the wrong problem, but you also seem to have corrected whatever caused the difficulty.

 

[Jack_Elation]

And if you PMd anyone, have you gotten an answer to the PM?

Yeah I did Pm someone and yeah I did get a response.

 

[sr71plt]

Yeah I did Pm someone and yeah I did get a response.

Great. Glad you got it worked out.

 

[zschachwitz]

Yeah, there's tons of English, Canadian, Kiwi, Scots, and whatnot writers here. That's what makes this story so weird. Ah, well. It got posted. You may have fixed the wrong problem, but you also seem to have corrected whatever caused the difficulty.

yeah, but! In the end I was so hacked off that in a fit of pique and tantrum I deleted that particular story, and the others as well.