The Sword and Laser discussion

Hi everyone!

I have been writing my book for around two months now and have filled up a couple of notebooks (A5) worth of worldbuilding and story telling.

I was really hoping that I could get some feedback for my story so far from other readers. Constructive criticism would be great!

https://t.co/bFRzB8z0kp

Thanks in advance,

Benedict

Benedict wrote: "Hi everyone!

I have been writing my book for around two months now ..."

Hi Benedict
Sorry, I am not offering . . . you might not appreciate my help anyway, I went through that process several years ago and must now classify myself as a failed author (judging by the sales figures!)

But I have a warning, and a suggestion.

First, the warning. Unless you have contacts (e.g. agents) and/or a LOT of luck, it can be a hard world out there! I was into this game in the relatively early days of electronic self-publishing via Amazon - and that is still a path I would recommend - but I wasn't quite early enough, and the market has got a lot tougher since. You will probably need to spend at least as much time marketing as you spend writing, maybe more - and I think my own 'failed' status is largely due to the fact that I am not! Even getting good reviews doesn't help unless you can get quite a lot of them in a relatively short time - I got a few, but it still got me nowhere!
So that's the warning!

The suggestion . . . Asking here was probably a good idea, but I checked your profile page and saw your postcode, so I suggest you get in touch with the Birmingham Science Fiction Group - google them, go to a meeting. I haven't been in contact with them for a couple of decades, but they used to be a very friendly and helpful bunch, and they included some BIG players in the F/SF fields.

Good luck!

Thanks Alan, I will google them now and look into the marketing aspect of self-publishing.

Thanks for taking the time to give me these words of advice! :)

Mostly good advice Alan. I'm not sure I would agree with the "failed author" assessment. Yes, the road is long and difficult, but there are many outlets for writing. The Grinder has hundreds of listings for short stories. Facebook has multiple Open Call pages. And, as you have noted, self publishing plus myriad ways to promote.

If we do not achieve the success that our icons have, that is still not failure. Even if we never get there, we can write for the semi pro market, put out books self published, and still engage in the creative process. We can't all be Larry Niven, or Stephen King, or whichever author is your icon. But we can all contribute.

Thank you John.

I'm not sure what percentage of people who read long to be authors but I have a very active imagination and thought what better way to use it than to create books that others could enjoy?

:)

You're three thousand words in. (3-4 days?) I wouldn't worry about publishing opportunities (or lack thereof) yet. See where the writing takes you.

Although I honestly don't know how a couple of notebooks can only be 3000 words... Did I read that wrong?

After having read your sample, I do not believe you should be concerned with publishing at this time. You still have a lot of work to do on your compositional skills. For example, you spend the first fifteen hundred or so words laying out not the story but focusing on your world-building instead. It is far better to weave this information into the story as it becomes important rather than drop it in a block at the beginning. I’m sure if you look in your library, you won’t find many examples of someone just listing off four pages of facts about the world they’ve created, however hard they worked on them.

Writing is analogous to learning to play a musical instrument. It takes years of daily practice to be proficient at a performance level. You say you’ve filled up a couple of notebooks (I’m guessing around 40,000 words); you need to fill up a couple of dozen, and then do it again. You also need to read extensively — not only in the genre you prefer, but also writing guides and supportive non-fiction. And if you’re serious about writing as a profession, or at least serious hobby, you need to begin networking with readers, as well as fellow writers and other industry professionals.

Don’t let anything I’ve said discourage you, however. If writing is something you enjoy, you should certainly continue to write and share your stories. Writing and publishing a novel is a life achievement, like running a marathon or climbing a mountain, that you may do dozens of times or only once. Either way, it’s a worthwhile experience.

Thank you both for your valuable feedback.

I have filled a couple of notebooks but this segment here is only a part of the first part of the first notebook.

I do read books but generally only from Fantasy/Sci-Fi.

I will have a look at writing practices and try and work out a better way to world build within the story.

So this is the actual story? This isn't your internal document?

I'm going to be brutally honest here: this is not ready for prime time. The first part reads like a bad Wikipedia article. The second part reads like bad fanfic.

The best thing I can say about this is that it is generic and dull. There's nothing here that we haven't seen a thousand times before. I can't tell if you don't have a clear sense of your location or you just aren't conveying it well. My guess is that it's both.

I looked at your Read shelf and while it appears that you love almost everything you've ever read, that's a huge red flag. I mean, it's a lovely way to live, enjoying everything you encounter, but it means you aren't particular about entertainment. Either you have no opinion about anything or you can't tell dross from gold. That's not a good quality in a writer.

I looked up a few of the books you've 5-starred that I'm unfamiliar with, such as the Andy McNab ones. They are terrible. The first one I clicked on was #15 in the series, yet in all that time the guy has never learned to put a proper paragraph together. Red flag. Stop reading garbage.

I don't want to come across as cruel, but someone needs to tell you this: you don't have the basics down yet.

Show, don't tell.

Why do we need to know how the Enertree works? Unless it's important, don't bother telling us about it. If you want to show off your pun (resist that unless it's a comedy), then make the Enertree *important*.

And don't do it the way Terry Brooks did it in Shannara 40 years ago, because everyone knows that story and hundreds of writers have used the exact same gambit in books, movies and video games. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then you need to read the book. Or at least the Wikipedia article summarizing it.

The thing about the months reads like the manual for a video game. If you want to convey that some creatures have an affinity for certain months then show that. Don't tell us. Have Greaf (really? He's named "grief"?) see a Snow Wolf hunt a... whatever... that's weakened by the season. A Fire Drake, maybe? I don't care. Or have Greaf encounter a Fire Drake but not be worried about it because it's the month of Frost, so it's too weak to be a threat.

The point is, find interesting ways to convey the information; don't just blurt it out like that.

The way you have it here is fine for your internal document, but this type of clunky infodump should never, ever, see the light of day.

Grammar and Punctuation matter

You shouldn't be leaving out proper punctuation. You have multiple instances where you've forgotten commas and periods, particularly inside quotations. This is something you should already know instinctively. If it isn't then you need to study it.

Increase your vocabulary

You keep reusing words. And you use them incorrectly half the time. "Blanket" evokes a specific image. In the two times you use it in the first page, only one is correct.

What is the story about?

Seems like Jottle (or was it Greaf? See, I've already forgotten) has overheard someone talking about a secret tomb and they want to find it. Is that your story? Because if it is, get to it.

...

I could go on like this forever, but I think you really do need to read some writing tips, because you need to master the fundamentals.

You might be better served if you start off describing where you live. Also put yourself in that space and use it. Pick a room in your home. This is a place that's familiar to you, so you know how it works. What does it look like? How do you move through the area? What part of it annoys you? Once you've done that, put the page aside for a couple weeks and then reread it with fresh eyes. Does the description give you a sense of place? Are there extraneous details that are unimportant? Give it to one of your friends and ask them if they can imagine themselves in the location, and if they can clearly envision it. If they can, then you can go on to step two: make that spot seem interesting.

I guarantee you that where you live is boring and what you do in it is common. So you have to keep working at it to make your very prosaic kitchen seem fascinating.

Once you master the boring parts and can make them interesting, then you can move on to your fantasy world, using those skills which will directly translate to describing any space.

Did you notice anything about what I just wrote? For instance, how many different words did I use to say the same thing? Space, room, place, area, location, spot, kitchen. If that didn't draw your attention then you need to train yourself so that it does.

(Did you see that I just used two different ways to say the same thing? "Notice" and "draw your attention". This sort of thing has to become second nature to you. Bonus point if you also caught on to the fact that I used "see" in the same way. Oh, and by the way, also "caught on to". Most people don't notice these things. As a writer, you should.)

Hello Trike!

Thank you for your feedback. At first I began reading it annoyed that I was being told that I'd done so much wrong but now I appreciate what you have done.

Been very very honest with me.

As a small part of background in my defence, I have never attended a course for English language higher than your standard English taught to children up to 16 years of age.

I suppose some of the books on my shelf could do with a harder criticism and I probably should have re-read the Andy McNab books I'd read 7 years ago before giving them a rating on Goodreads when I signed up last month.

I am going to start fresh with the story but I think I will try your writing exercise first.

I thought that it was a pretty good story with lots of unique ideas but you have pin pointed everything as if you know me. I used to play video games until around three months ago (I'm 32 in June this year) and I began when I was five.

I have always had a fondness for books but since removing the games console this has flourished. I have a few ideas for different books but I can see I'm not thinking about each word individually instead of building a large bland picture.

I also picked the name Greaf as a combination of two things like Green Leaf although I can see how it comes off as a sadness over certain results.

Sorry for the long post but I really want to do this as a job and I believe with hard work anything is possible.

Would you mind if I added you as a friend? I have none on here and honesty is a favourite trait of mine.

Benedict

And here I was trying to be tactful. There is literally an entire industry centered around teaching people to write better. In addition to the thousands of self-help books out there, check out your favorite authors to see if they have blogs or podcasts. Many give away great writing advice for free. This is a good one to start with which covers the basics in detail: https://andrewjchamberlain.com/podcast/

Since you're rewriting, I'll give two more quick tips. Start the story just before the first big change in your world occurs. It might be a stranger arriving in town, a death in the family, or the uncovering of an urn in the family garden. Begin there and show the change it has on your characters. Also, always try to be aware of your character's motivations. When you get stuck (and you will get stuck) it's usually because you've forgotten why your creations do the things they do. Once you figure out what drives them, it's easier to see how they'll react to the situations you put them in. Good luck.

Thanks for the help Sean.

Thanks for being tactful ;-)

Feel free to send me a friend request, but I'm not a writing teacher. There are lots of writing groups out there online and IRL to help you improve.

I'd also recommend a few podcasts:
Writing Excuses, hosted by Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler and Dan Wells - www.writingexcuss.com
Scriptnotes, hosted by John August and Craig Mazin. Listen to the 3-page challenge episodes in particular. - www.johnaugust.com/scriptnotes
Creative Writer's Toolbelt, by writing teacher Andrew Chamberlain. He often gives examples, which is very helpful. - http://ajc-cwt-001.podomatic.com/

Basically you want your writing to go from the equivalent of this first drawing to the second one, and that requires practice. It's work, all of it hard and little of it fun. There's no instant gratification and you only really notice that you've improved when you compare your new stuff to your old stuff.


http://jademere.deviantart.com/art/Dr...

I was seized by a fit of dementedness when I responded earlier, channeling my inner J.K. Simmons from Whiplash. I don't do that often because most people can't handle it. But I figured that you could probably stand the heat since you had the cojones to just jump in and show your stuff like that in the first place.

Although to be honest, I could probably rewrite that opening page to illustrate what we're all talking about, but that might be too much like giving you the answers rather than letting you figure it out on your own.