The Novel and the Unitended Eyes

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DarkLight

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So I'm working on a thriller, a WIP I'm not too focused on but use to get occassional breaks from my other WIP. My little sister walks in and, against my wishes, begins to read the last paragraph, which luckily isn't anything all that bad. It does however include the phrase "sexual favor and the wussy sap that complies." *Pauses typing due to interruption by said sister who wants to know where my IPOD is* she asks what r u doing on this website? r u a geek?

The last two sentences were her doing. Ignore them. So she then begins to ask if there are any sex scenes, in an attempt to scold me for such. Luckily, I haven't gotten to them ...yet. ;)
She also likes to break into my room when I've temporarily abandoned my WIP for a bathroom break. When I get back, most of my characters have beem murdered in odd ways by pink bunnies. Often, they are run over by a stampede of them. Once, an MC had his brains sucked out by a moisquito and I had to save him. She isn't a beta reader. If she ever did read my stuff, she'd either find it too violent or make fun of characters for their powers and stuff. She's a down to earth shopping diva who just spent the last five hours on a rip off of myspace, telling me about cute boys who sent her messages. That is not an exaggeration on the time. Whatever. So, since I'm bored, why don't you tell me of any odd encounters between an unfinished novel and a beta reader, friend, or kid. I know some moms must have some funny stories.
 

reenkam

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I gave someone one of my stories, once. And they read a part out loud and gave the character an accent...when the character didn't have one.

It was just kind of odd, to me.

:Shrug:
 

johnzakour

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The only experience I have like that is when I'm writing away my son will come in, read over my shoulder then say, "Not bad, but Douglas Adams would have done it funnier."
 

Azraelsbane

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I took a piece to a crit session a few weeks back. Rave reviews and tons of help here on AW, but I got a slow, monotone reader, and the text was a lot of emotional dialog. Oh wow. I so felt like clawing my eyes out through the entire thing. She literally KILLED one of my characters with her voice. Intelligent and witty? Not a chance! The other guy in the scene, emotional and confused...yeah, every word sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

There was even one line, which was supposed to be, "Right now you're a dimension away from her and as far as I'm concerned you could still do with some distance."

It was read as "do her with some distance."

I almost passed out cold. :rant:
 

wayndom

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You'll love Windows Vista. Every time you put the computer in sleep mode, you have to enter your password for it to open up again.
 

misswriter

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I took a piece to a crit session a few weeks back. Rave reviews and tons of help here on AW, but I got a slow, monotone reader, and the text was a lot of emotional dialog. Oh wow. I so felt like clawing my eyes out through the entire thing. She literally KILLED one of my characters with her voice. Intelligent and witty? Not a chance! The other guy in the scene, emotional and confused...yeah, every word sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

There was even one line, which was supposed to be, "Right now you're a dimension away from her and as far as I'm concerned you could still do with some distance."

It was read as "do her with some distance."

I almost passed out cold. :rant:
That is so depressing.

I gave a novella I'd written (for school) that was quite deep, about a Masai who comes to the States to go to school, and realizes that we're not near as pure as the Masai and life isn't as perfect as it's supposed to be here (based loosely, VERY loosely, on a true story). There was a slight hint of romance, a guy that made her heart beat that would talk to her every once in a while and finally asks her to a dance, and all my friend says is "Oh good, she got the guy. Wait, what are the rest of the pages for?" The rest of the pages happened to include when she decided to go back to the Masai Mara and everything following that. In other words, after she read the most important part of the book, she didn't understand. I was insulted until I realized I'd given it to my most boy-crazy friend who only reads romances.
 

Danger Jane

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Closest I've ever come...

My laptop was open on the basement couch when my little sister (8) and one of her friends invaded during a brief excursion for like, a soda or something. She was not into reading at that point, which was a few weeks ago, so she just grins at me and said like three random words from the page all WHAT IS THAT LOL?!

I was like Paige, out.
 

amber_grosjean

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After my first book came out, I told a friend of mine not to let anyone under 18 read it because there was a sex scene in (PG13 but there are breasts) one of the scenes. A couple weeks went by and I saw her young grand daughter holding the book. She took one look at me and started telling me parts in the book that she liked. My friend didn't even know that she had read the book.

Needless to say, I was a little embarrassed because I didn't know she liked stories like the one I had written. If I had known that, I might have reconsidered using the scene because it really didn't have to be in there. It felt right to me to use the scene to show how the couple was feeling toward each other which did push the story forward. Now my next book is a lot more graphic so I have no idea how I will keep her away from it. I'm so worried that a young preteen will be reading something my mother considers smut.

This was the closest I could come up with lol.
Amber
 

Danger Jane

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Well to be honest Amber, teenagers can handle a sex scene or two. There's some pretty edgy YA out there that does very very well and not just in a niche market. See "Edgy YA" thread in Writing YA.
 

JoNightshade

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I can't stand to be in the room when ANYONE is reading my stuff aloud. In college, I used to make myself sick for hours before a creative writing class in which my work would be read (thank goodness we didn't have to read our own stuff, I would have died).

The other day I had written a scene on the back of a piece of paper-- just jotted down to type up later. I left it out. Hours go by. I am having a conversation with my husband when all of a sudden he says, "Can I ask you a question?"

I say, "Yeah, sure, go ahead."

He says, "Tell me, why do you love--"

At which point I realize that he is reading from my scene. The first line was "Can I ask you a question." Apparently when I answered with the exact line from my scene, he kept reading. But at the point he said "love," I started wailing and screaming and trying to run away. He grabbed my legs and held onto me and hugged me while I did lots of embarrassed moaning and groaning. Hopefully he has learned his lesson and will never subject me to that again.

Except he thinks it's cute when I wail. ::Sigh::
 

wayndom

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i kind of like the idea of a pink bunny stampede. it's unexpected.

It's been done. Family guy, the episode where Quagmire crashes an airliner, and the evening news uses computer graphics to show what the crash would've looked like if the plane had been full of fuzzy bunnies.

That Seth MacFarlane, he'll suck the ideas right outta your head...
 

Azraelsbane

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(thank goodness we didn't have to read our own stuff, I would have died).

Man, I WISH my crit group would let me read my stuff. ;) But that's just me. I do voices and everything. They always give me the longest piece to read (other than my own), because they think I'm a hoot.
 

amber_grosjean

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Well to be honest Amber, teenagers can handle a sex scene or two. There's some pretty edgy YA out there that does very very well and not just in a niche market. See "Edgy YA" thread in Writing YA.

Wow, I never even imagined. I have a lot to learn yet on that. I was raised to stay away from things like that growing up. I lived a very sheltered life lol. That is why my parents don't even know about Stolen Identity. God forbid I wrote something like that lol. I don't feel as bad now, thank you!

Amber
 

Danger Jane

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Ha, well go ahead and read what you want to now. We always welcome converts in the edgy YA board.
 

Stijn Hommes

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Use a password. I even see people abandon things like their final report on public library computers. It only takes one nut to decide to delete the lot. People should be more careful in general - especially with sisters.
 

Myriada Star

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it once happened to me that my younger brother could see what i am typing.
He destroyed his keyboard (just wanted to clean it) and because we both have wireless keyboard and mouse when i started typing he could see it. He had couple of pages of my wip on his computer. When he told me i started to freak out- delete it delete it, dont look at it.
and d ya know what that litle jerk did? he put it on the internet on his website. But only for few minutes because then i became too violent.
after that i was very paranoid to actually write anything
 

JLCwrites

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My husband looked over my shoulder a couple of time while I was writing, and mentioned one day that he wasn't sure about using present tense. He thought that only screenplays were written in PT. After scolding him for looking at my story, I promptly informed him there were plenty of books written in PT.

After reading these posts, I am glad no one will be reading my works out loud. Yikes!
 

Saundra Julian

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My daughter read part of my WIP and said it was porn! It's sexually explicate but it is NOT porn....

Lesson learned, never let your grown children read your sex scenes. You're "the mother" and not suppose to know about things like that! Wonder how these kids think they got here?
 

Azraelsbane

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My daughter read part of my WIP and said it was porn! It's sexually explicate but it is NOT porn....

Lesson learned, never let your grown children read your sex scenes. You're "the mother" and not suppose to know about things like that! Wonder how these kids think they got here?

What's wrong with porn? LoL. What do you think is going through the reader's mind during those explicit scenes? That's why I don't buy second hand romance books. When the pages are stuck together, it has a whole different meaning. :roll:
 
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