A little writing prompt ...

[Raithah]

I haven't been writing much, what with exams and holidays taking up my time, but lately I've felt the urge to make something. God forbid this should take any effort, so I decided to try my hand at an idea that had been floating in my head for some time.

Bear in mind that this is a draft, that I have a ... different style of writing than what most people are used to, and that I can be wordy at times. But if you have an opinion speak it; I'm open to suggestions.

Oh, and one more thing : no comments on the story-line. This is just a writing excercise for me, so any such comments will be ignored.

[linkie]

Edit: It's short, just a couple hundred words. Now you have no excuse not to click :D.

[ChaosTheory]

You seem to be a writer fairly close to my own style. As such, I'll give you a few hints:

1) Always write with tactile description. Make readers feel the surroundings. Give them atmosphere, mood, texture, and description, and they can build their own perception of your setting, and if you are good, you can persuade them to think of the setting a certain way that will hold well throughout the story.

2) Try to keep the "he said"s and "the other stated"s to a minimum. they really interrupt the flow of the story in my experience. Just give a general description of the mood of the person talking, then put a period and go straight into the quote, without using "said" or any of its usual relations.

3) Use a few commas as possible. I tend to be verbose in my sentences, and end up with confusing, comma-filled sentences. Keep that habit down before it starts.

4) Speak about subjects from as many different points of view and styles of reference as possible. For example, the intro to this thought is very good:

Words flittered about, waves of opinion crashing against one another - is it the insurgents or a repair run late ?

Also, here is a sample of my first-draft writing for you to compare. This is the intro to my short novel, Armada:

(Chaos is the cat, not me, and Ben is the main character.)

Chaos, with her perfect, glistening sapphire eyes and half-alert ears, glanced over the stars and galaxies of open space with a drowsy gaze. Deciding the tiny, curved sill of an exterior window was not nearly large enough to take an afternoon nap, even for a Siamese of her miniscule dimensions, she slipped quietly off the smooth aluminum sill and landed on a rather bouncy bed built into the wall. Finding this the perfect place to get a little sleep, the fluffy blue blankets on the bed were soon occupied by a curled-up velvet black cat.

Ben watched this all in silence from his metal swiveling chair. He reflected on how perfectly suited his cat was to life in a floating space station, billions of miles from the nearest planet where one would normally find such animals. Then again, that was all the will of those genetic engineers, who long ago tweaked and bred this breed of Siamese to be smaller, lighter, and as intelligent as possible, the perfect feline for a generally isolated but advanced interstellar docking point.

Ben, however, was a little more dubious of his own suitability for such a life. Most of the time, his daily schedule was plain and boring. Wake up, go to class in room T-22, go to lunch, go to work light industrial block H-5, head home to residential block A-15, have dinner, feed his cat Chaos, go to sleep. Some days, maybe once a month, though, a small patrol craft or even a large interstellar transport would come by for a refueling and cargo exchange. Every few times one of those sleek, powerful craft drew up to the dock, Ben wondered, quietly to himself, if the rest of the galaxy was more interesting. Those planets, beautiful spheres of life strung between the stars, havens of freedom and spaciousness, with no metal walls and half-foot thick windows in the way.

Chaos blinked imperceptibly, and considered whether to continue sleeping or have a snack. Ben temporarily left off his thoughts of space travel to consider the math problems on his desk. Life had to go on, or else the legions of spacecraft that depended on the Archimedes space station would become mere lost derelicts, stranded between the stars of Sector Epsilon.

Ben tiredly ceased his work and evicted Chaos from the warm bed, as the lamp on his desk cast pale rays through his crystalline window into the starry fathoms of space.

[Raithah]

I totally agree with number one - a good description of the environment is necessary to a good story. I've always liked focusing more on the world than the characters; they're often far more interesting :).

Your second point; though, I disagree with. Though it is important to cut down on 'speak' 'spoke' 'said' (etc.) use, they still need to be employed where necessary. I tried to keep it to a minimum, but wherever they were required to be (e.g. after a long pause or a change of characters) they were replaced with more colourful words (chimed, adverbs, etc.). Arguably this can slow the writing down even more, but from my experience it's far more satisfying to read.

I, agree, completely. This, is, a, horrible, habbit, and, I, have, been, trying, to, break, it, ever, since, I, started, posting, rants, on, forums.

And that's one heck of an intro - do you have the rest of the novel completed ?

[darkone8752]

Your second point; though, I disagree with. Though it is important to cut down on 'speak' 'spoke' 'said' (etc.) use, they still need to be employed where necessary. I tried to keep it to a minimum, but wherever they were required to be (e.g. after a long pause or a change of characters) they were replaced with more colourful words (chimed, adverbs, etc.). Arguably this can slow the writing down even more, but from my experience it's far more satisfying to read.

Alternatively, you can just put characters lines on the next line after they've been identified if its only 2 people.

Personone looked up from his work as he heard the chime of the door. Seeing a customer he quickly gathered himself before declaring loudly "Welcome to importantstoreplace1!"
"Thanks" Came the short tense reply, person2's attention locked on the strange gizmos and objects decorating the walls.
"Anything i can get ya?"
"Just browsing around."

So on and so forth. Descriptions can follow each person as long as it focuses on them somehow. Obviously you aren't using person1/person2/importantstoreplace as names

[Raithah]

Your suggestion is so good I already implemented it :).

Here's a question for anyone who read the prompt - did it make sense ? Did anything baffle you, e.g. words, conventions, etc. ?

[TrashMan]

Short, but not bad at all.

[ChaosTheory]

Your second point; though, I disagree with. Though it is important to cut down on 'speak' 'spoke' 'said' (etc.) use, they still need to be employed where necessary. I tried to keep it to a minimum, but wherever they were required to be (e.g. after a long pause or a change of characters) they were replaced with more colourful words (chimed, adverbs, etc.). Arguably this can slow the writing down even more, but from my experience it's far more satisfying to read.

Yes, anything is good in moderation, but I find that to many "said"s and "replied"s make a good piece sound amateur. So I avoid them unless absolutely necessary. The way I usually try to get around it is to make dialog involve two characters whose opposing opinions/ ways of speaking make them different enough that the reader doesn't need a hint to who is talking. In an argument, not having "said" cluttering up space makes the conversation sound much more fluid, rapid-fire, and chaotically realistic.

(oh, look at that, I made another long sentence with lots of commas. I think I fixed it now.)

And that's one heck of an intro - do you have the rest of the novel completed ?

"A heck of an intro" in what way? And no, only about ~1/3 done. Haven't even edited it, either, so it may take a while.

[Raithah]

'One heck' means it's very good :). 'Can't wait to see what the entire thing will read like.

Going off-topic a little, has anyone ever heard of a web-serial ? I've been considering starting one, so if you have any opinions or experience on the matter I'd love to hear it.

[ChaosTheory]

'One heck' means it's very good . 'Can't wait to see what the entire thing will read like.

Glad to hear it.

Going off-topic a little, has anyone ever heard of a web-serial ? I've been considering starting one, so if you have any opinions or experience on the matter I'd love to hear it.

Kind of . . . like a daily, or weekly comic/blog/story sort of deal? No experience there, but it sounds interesting.

[Raithah]

Yeah, I had a webcomic-style publishing system in mind.

And does anyone know how extensible WordPress is ? I mean, could I get it to look more like a comic front page than a blog ?

[Sponge]

It's a nice little story, and I'd like to read more. There are a few bits that are oddly worded, and while I understand what you were going for, there are better ways to do it. Here's an example.

"'Came as soon as I heard. What's happening ?", he sounded panicked.

"We're being told it's another bomb threat. It's severe, this time.", as did he.

First, why did you start with "'? I'm going to guess typo. Next, punctuation always goes inside the quotes, and so in the case of the first line, you only need the question mark- the comma is superfluous.

On line two, you did the same thing. The period in the quotations (this time.",) should be removed and replaced by a comma. You should then get rid of the comma you have in there now. Also, the "as did he." is awkwardly worded. Not sure how you could fix that, but I had to read it twice before it made sense.

Another example of keeping your punctuation inside the quotations is in this line:

Thank you for your continued patience.".

Get rid of the period at the end of the sentence. The one in the quotation marks is all that is necessary. I'm pretty sure I saw a few more of these errors throughout the passage.

Overall, it's good. Just edit it. I find reading aloud helps to make awkward wordings and incorrect grammar stick out. Also, keep your conventions with your quotations in line. Grammar Nazis like myself will bug you about it .

[Raithah]

Thanks - but I'm far too lazy to correct any typos right now. Maybe tomorrow ...