Time to shred the New Girl

[NanashiKuro]

I'm a new writer here, and I've had the first three chapters of my (hopefully) book approved in the last few days and I'm really looking for some good critique on how I can improve my writing and maybe develop a style if I don't already have one that I'm not aware of.

So, here's moi, blabbering on and pleading in front of you to give me some real in-depth stuff on my story. I'm not really looking for an editor as in to spot mistakes in grammar and punctuation (though they are useful if you spot a glaringly stupid mistake), which is why I've posted here, but more for comments on my style and how I can improve on what I've got in the storyline and maybe how I can go about developing my characters a little more, they can be a bit 2D at the minute.

As I've said in my advert, I have written quite a bit (24,700 words and counting) but it's all over the place. I've written bits that I thought of at the time, but they're much further along the timeline of the story and there's currently a real need for me to get into the connecting material and less into the sex. Yes, I really need my serious writing head on. I do promise that Chapter 4 is on its way, and apologies to those of you who prefer longer chapters, but this is how I write.

The first couple of chapters I actually wrote when I was about 14, so I've also been going over them for the last day or so to tweak and improve some things now that I'm more compentant as a writer.

Gorram it, why do I have to blabber on for so long on a forum, now you're going to think I'm all boring and that. Meh, please, just read the story, and all comments are muchos appreciated. Please?

The first chapter is here

 

[D_K_Moon]

Watch your spelling, Tylarah FireWynd walked down the isle of the deserted train,. This caused me to pause for a moment, I thought you were describing an island of unused railway equipment.

I found the rest of the first paragraph confusing, She hated having to get human transport to portals around the country, it took that long and there were the non-magical people to contend with sometimes. Why would they not hurry up and teach her how to make her own, like she had seen so many other Witches doing? She sighed deeply as she passed yet another empty compartment.

Readers shouldn't have to reread sections of the story over and over to try to understand what the writer is trying to convey.

The ellipsis, "..." is used to show imcomplete dialog, or thoughts, and not to be used to indicate a pause, the em-dash is used for that.

Overall, I found your story confusing to follow, due in part to spelling errors. Personally, I think the sex detracted from an interesting beginning.

 

[drksideofthemoon]

The above comments were from me.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Drk, I stumbled over the first line too. "Isle" would be a lot better written as "aisle". One is an iland, the other a walkway. The rest of the paragraph is, if not disturbing, cofused. What the hell kind of story is this. The author needed to tell us.

From that point, paragraphs two through four are dismal discription. Paragraph four is 20 lines long and almost unreadable on a monitor. NanashiKuro, limit your paragraphs to 6-8 screen lines. It is so much easier to read. Paragraph four is an automatic back click.

The resto fo the story is just as disinteresting as a Saturday morning cartoon. The characters are not believable. The plot is confused And the just isn't anything there to hold the reader's attention.

Your writing skills are pretty good, but you need to think your story through first. As you say in your post, thiese are the first three chapters of a book. My advice would be to stop in midstream and start out with something a lot shorter - like a real short story. When you get tha short story down, you will be ready to write your novel.

From what I see, you could learn to write short stories, but you need to grow into a much longer piece.

 

[MarshAlien]

I think your instincts are spot on; your character is quite two-dimensional, and you are running the risk of losing the interest of your readership if you don't start actually telling the story soon rather than having her make love to every guy she bumps into.

You seem to have the beginnings of a good story here, although I don't think the reader has any idea what it is until Chapter 3, when we learn that Tylarah might be the woman in the prophecy. I assume that Chapter One was intended to be an introduction to Tylarah; all I discovered is that she is a very horny witch. Your story begs for description. In the first sentence, you write that she was "wearing her robes over her usual clothes." What sort of robes? What are her "usual clothes?" Why was she wearing them both, rather than one or the other? I'm not suggesting that you put all of this in the first paragraph, but you might want to expand on some of these things to give your reader a better idea of the character that they're supposed to care enough about to follow through however many chapters you plan.

I agree with D_K, and his alt, drk, that the sex in the first chapter seems awfully gratuitous. Are all witches this randy? Actually, the whole first chapter seemed superfluous. I would have been tempted to start with the third paragraph, when her teacher comes on board the train and the "story" starts. You could then have devoted a couple of characters to a flashback about their introduction (a whole chapter of flashback is too much, imho) and gone into some dialogue between Tylarah and her teacher that would have shown us more about her character than your telling us has done so far. She could complain at that point, for example, about having to take the train in the first place, and not being shown the portal thing. And similarly, if you want her to be fucking every guy she meets, you could set up that part of her.

Finally, it's fine to apologize for the short chapters. But what might be better is to wait and group a bunch of chapters together into a longer "part." This advice is based on experience; I tend to write short chapters, too (although not as short as you) and one of the first comments I got here was that the chapters were too short. So I usually put two or three together now on Lit when I post.

I think you have a future here, but I think you have a some more work to do to realize it. Welcome to Lit.

 

[mjl2010]

snip... disinteresting as a Saturday morning cartoon. The characters are not believable. The plot is confused And the just isn't anything there to hold the reader's attention.

Awe Jenny come on! I love cartoons.

Not the new ones, the old ones. Elmer, Bugs and the whole gang. They were almost as loony as I am.

MJL

 

[NanashiKuro]

Thanks for all of your comments, and I'm in no way going to defend everything, because that would be rather hypocrytical of me when I asked for the crits in the first place.
Firstly though, I do feel that I have to reiterate that it was nearly 6 years ago when I first started writing the story, and that mainly involves the first three chapters, so you've yet to see my (well I think so) improved and matured writing style. Yeah, so I've been stupid in not re-writing the first bits, but rest assured that I shall in the near future.

The paragraph length is an argueable point, as I wasn't originally writing it for reading on the internet, more for actual paper publishing (I know I'm probably kidding myself there too.)
As for the chapter length, I didn't think of putting them together , thanks for that one.
And spelling mistakes, that's me typing too fast for my own good, and relying on Word all too much.

On the subject of my writing a short story: I usually find it very difficult to limit my works to what is usually taken as a "short" story, as I usually ramble on, and I know that could be fixed my me cutting it down to the good stuff later on, but I've never really done that before.
Having said this, I am trying at the moment to add to a teeny work that I wrote in the near past for a writing group and I'm going to work that into a short story, even if it means clipping the thing 'til it bleeds when I think I'm done.
After that, I'm hitting the ideas threads to break me away from the one genre.

Finally, MarshAlien, I don't quite grasp what you mean when you go on about a flashback. I'm not sure if you think there is one or there aught to be one. I'd appreciate an explanation if you think there's room for serious improvement along that line.

Anyways, thanks to you all again, and I hope that you keep on reading when I put some more pieces up.

P.S. I do promise that there are ENTIRE chapters of Tylarah with no sex in them!

 

[mjl2010]

The paragraph length is an argueable point, as I wasn't originally writing it for reading on the internet, more for actual paper publishing

Actually, it is not an arguable point. Reading on a monitor is very different from reading on paper. It is harder on the eyes. When a paragraph gets longer than six to eight screen lines, it becomes hard to read. This is not a grammar issue as so many think it is. It is a comfort issue. I hit a paragraph that is long, I might try to read it if the story is interesting so far. If I hit a second one, I'm out. Doesn't matter how good the story is.

When you publish on the internet, you need to cut those paragraphs down. Simply add a couple of [enter] strokes at the end of a sentence and you're all set. Try for six to eight lines. Ten is ok. Twelve is pushing it and don't have too many that long. Remember, we're talking reader comfort here. You could have the greatest story ever written and get dismal voting just for that reason alone.

Long paragraphs cause the readers eye to skip words and skim along. We need the whitespace.

Even on paper, publishers want paragraphs to be shorter than 15 lines of type. Longer paragraphs are hard to read.

Welcome to writing on Lit. We don't mean to bite, we're trying to help.



MJL

 

[sr71plt]

Actually, it is not an arguable point. Reading on a monitor is very different from reading on paper. It is harder on the eyes. When a paragraph gets longer than six to eight screen lines, it becomes hard to read. This is not a grammar issue as so many think it is. It is a comfort issue. I hit a paragraph that is long, I might try to read it if the story is interesting so far. If I hit a second one, I'm out. Doesn't matter how good the story is.

When you publish on the internet, you need to cut those paragraphs down. Simply add a couple of [enter] strokes at the end of a sentence and you're all set. Try for six to eight lines. Ten is ok. Twelve is pushing it and don't have too many that long. Remember, we're talking reader comfort here. You could have the greatest story ever written and get dismal voting just for that reason alone.

Long paragraphs cause the readers eye to skip words and skim along. We need the whitespace.

Even on paper, publishers want paragraphs to be shorter than 15 lines of type. Longer paragraphs are hard to read.

Welcome to writing on Lit. We don't mean to bite, we're trying to help.



MJL

I agree with that. If you've put something on the Internet and the format doesn't work well, it's not much of an argument that you didn't format it to put on the Internet.