Feedback from authors

[Bobbs]

Hello everyone!

As you might have guessed, I am new here. Haven't met too many of you, but the ones that I have met have made me feel so very welcome and I thank them!

I've received quite a bit of feedback about my stories from readers. Most of which I could not share in polite company. However, I would really like feedback from other writers as well as the readers. As we all know, we can't get better if we don't ask for honest critisism. So feel free to point out what I could do better.

Brutal is okay, but cruel could make me run and hide. Honest is best when it comes to critiques, and my skin is thick enough to handle anything constructive.

Please take a look and let me know what you think! The link is to my profile as I have one story, with four chapters. It seemed easier than posting four seperate links. If this is a problem, let me know and I can change it.

Amanda Series

Thanks to all who take the time to reply!! I look forward to getting to know all of you nice folks.

Bobbs

 

[Rainbow Skin]

Tom was a tall man, a stately figure at over 6' tall. His short dark hair accentuated his light hazel eyes. He worked as a freelance writer.


Just a few quick pointers from the first paragraphs.

Already one problem shows up: your sentences are too simple. One clause, full stop. One clause, full stop. Over and over, with hardly any complexity. They state a single fact and fail to connect with each other: you need to use 'then' and 'although' and 'while' and 'because' and 'before' and semicolons more.


She would see her father pecking away at his keyboard, he seemed to be memorized by the glowing computer screen.


Try reading this aloud with the comma as an ordinary comma, with its drop of voice, and you'll see they don't fit together: you want a colon or semicolon here, or some connecting word (e.g. 'as'), or some subordinating construction like 'seeming to be'. And surely you mean 'mesmerized'?

Don't use numbers. First, don't write 6' for six feet, and second, don't specify things like heights exactly: it never matters that someone is 5'1". She's short, or very short.

 

[HedbangerSA]

Constructive Comments

Good comments, Rainbow Skin. Bobbs could perhaps read some of your stories - you take your language (it is "English" after all) seriously and do it well, while most of us just string our sentences together free form. Your essential point is especially good - it helps to develop the ability to step back from your writing and see the structure. Are details necessary, does each clause add something and move the story along. I should talk - glad I didn't ask you to critique my stories! Scott

 

[Bobbs]

Already one problem shows up: your sentences are too simple. One clause, full stop. One clause, full stop. Over and over, with hardly any complexity. They state a single fact and fail to connect with each other: you need to use 'then' and 'although' and 'while' and 'because' and 'before' and semicolons more.

Ah, I see what you are talking about. Yes, it does feel choppy, sounds choppy, and had no idea how to bring it together. Semicolons have always frightened me!

And surely you mean 'mesmerized'?

Yes and I have no idea how I missed it!

Don't use numbers.

I already took a beating for this one (But, I've changed! Promise I have!!)

Thanks so much for taking time to point out my mistakes. Nothing worse than not improving! (Well, maybe somethings are worse - but you know what I mean.)

Okay, so work on the basic structure and learn how to bring the sentences together. Got it! Stop letting punctuation frighten me. Got that one too!

Any other comments will be well received. I've never written before and this is only my second story (OMGosh! You think this is bad, you should have seen the first, it was horrible, just horrible!)

Thanks so much, I truly appreciate your time.

Bobbs

 

[Rainbow Skin]

Okay, that's not bad for a second story. Things like missing 'mesmerize' could happen to any of us - you just have to re-read it a few times before going public.

Let's take all those points as read, and move on to lesson two. I'm now looking at your second part.

Some of your adjectives are the simplest choice available: his big warm hands, her beautiful body, her young flesh, her pink lips. Others are more specific, but are still cliches of erotic fiction: his tremulous hand, her pert breast, his probing tongue, her tender little bud. In both sorts of case these could be taken for granted; you're not really adding any specific colouring to the image. If you left out 'beautiful' the reader would still think of her body as beautiful, and so on.

I'm not saying you should think up unusual words, necessarily, but leave out very familiar ones, or show rather than tell: have his hand tremble, his tongue probe.

 

[Bobbs]

Okay now you hit the nail on the head. Simple minds use simple words!

So we take it up a knotch - maybe I should read more!! Where are your stories again?LOL! Already there!!

Okay so the lesson here is reach for the next level and quit groveling at the bottom of the barrel and reusing worn out cliche's. Gotcha! - now do you have a ladder I could borrow?

Keep it coming this is the most honesty I've heard from anyone!

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Hi Bobbs,

First of all, Ranbow gave you some great advice. You need to learn how to vary your sentence structure to make the prose flow more. Comining sentences to make compound sentences is one way; there are an infinity of other ways. The way you learn to do this is to read, but for your own sake don't read only or even primarily on Lit because probably 95% of what's here is not good at all. There are some good writers here, some very good writers, and Rainbow is one of them, but most of what you find here is not worth reading and definitely not worth trying imitate. So find other writers, published writers, that you like, and see how they vary their sentences, how they handle tricky scenes, how they describe things. Really, if you don't read, you'll never learn how to write well.

You have some problems with puntuation as well, mainly commas. I think that most writers learn how to punctuate by reading. They don't think about it, they certainly don't use the rules they taught us in school (if they taight them at all). The rules are fine, but no one has time to look them all up. After you write for awhile it becomes automatic and you won't think twice about punctuation.

(BTW: a semicolon is very versatile. You can use it to join two sentences where the conjunction is ommitted, like, "He was lost; no one would ever find him". It kind of functions like a 'stronger' comma too, connecting two very close thoughts, but I digress.)

I read most of the first part of the story. I'm personally not into incest stories, so I can't really comment on how effective or erotic the story is. But as a reader I did notice a few things:

The band-aid scene seems to have no point. I have a feeling that that actually happened to you or someone you know; it has that kind of feel to it. But it has nothing to so with the rest of the story as far as I can tell, so why include it? In a story every part should be necessary or it shouldn't be there.

Her breaking both her arms is a pretty clever way to set up the scene where her father has to bathe her, even if it isn't very erotic. But here she is with two broken arms in casts. How does she go to the bathroom? How does she pick up the phone and hold it to her ear? How does she put her arms around her father and hug him? See what I mean?

I don't want you to think that I mean to be all negative. The errors are always easier to pick out, because we tend to skip over the good parts. But you have talent, and you have a story to tell, and you have some clever ways of doing it.

I thought the telephone eavesdropping idea was a clever way to have her find out about her past, and I've already mentioned the broken arm thing (maybe one broken arm would have been enough?) which was also clever. I thought Tom and Amanda's conversation in her room went pretty well. I thought the phone conversation was too hate-filled; someone would have slammed the phone down. At least I would have had someone talked like that too me.

I think you're inventive and have things to say and you should keep at it. I think you just have to work on your style--the way you say them--and you'll turn out some good stuff.

All the best,

---dr.M.