OMG, LOL! typing in an orgy of mint-chocolatey madness musta affected mah spehlinggg...
I know it's aisles! ffs, AISLES!!!
Although I'm with you - the Biscuit Isles sound like the kinda place I wanna live
Just have to lol at this.
Biscuit Isles...
Post the first 3 sentences of your WIP!
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Just have to lol at this.
Biscuit Isles...
Yuh...
It's.... ok. A few grammatical and vocab errors, but mainly I'm just not finding it all that gripping. He's not speeding or worried, nor does he seem to have any distinct purpose to where he's going, other than 'away from his apartment' - I can't really latch onto anything.
Yuh...
It's.... ok. A few grammatical and vocab errors, but mainly I'm just not finding it all that gripping. He's not speeding or worried, nor does he seem to have any distinct purpose to where he's going, other than 'away from his apartment' - I can't really latch onto anything.
Thanks! There is pronoun confusion there, I should fix that..
As for your other comment:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/irradiated?s=t
And finally, he's not really in a rush, but his car is about to break down. I don't think he needs to be in a rush, it's supposed to be slow, though I appreciate your feedback.
That sounds like the place to start, then, when it's already broken down and he's in a fix.
Not going into grammar & spelling (which I sux). Two things:
a) nineteen ninety-something piece of crap doesn't make it. This is ambiguous tell. He's the owner, he knows the year. He's the owner. He knows the make/model. Why not nail it? I recently donated my "crap" 1993 Camry to Red Cross and you ain't gonna believe how much they managed to sell it for. >$3,000. So we may say "crap" is in the eyes of users.
b) The whole opening says he's leaving his apartment (why? is he moving away for a new job or is he kicked out for smoking pot in the lobby? why complex? is it a housing project?) and that he's dirt-poor. This isn't very interesting. I have a feeling you're not starting at the right place.
Yeah, his car is about to break down and then it will reveal why he left, which is he got in a fight with his girlfriend.
Also, the narrator is not Lucas or any other MC, and it is not an omniscient narrator. I don't think the make/model are important in this case, rather just the shape that the car is in.
Thanks for your crit.
It may not be the right place to start, I may change this.
edit: although in that case, since it's not an omniscient narrator, I wonder if it's still plausible to know he doesn't have the money to fix it.
Hrmm
Also, the narrator is not Lucas or any other MC, and it is not an omniscient narrator. I don't think the make/model are important in this case, rather just the shape that the car is in.
Thanks for your crit.
It may not be the right place to start, I may change this.
edit: although in that case, since it's not an omniscient narrator, I wonder if it's still plausible to know he doesn't have the money to fix it.
Hrmm
Oh man, Kalli, I laughed so frick-and-frackin' hard at this, damn you!
Now everyone's staring at my cubicle at work!
MrMintBourbons
Registered
You'll never take my bourbons, let alone the mint ones! Ack, cough *throat fills with blood* damn you... *strange gurgling noise*
I sorta hate to break up the mint bourbon party, but I wanted to respond to my critter.
Willow--no, that was not my intention! I will be more careful. I once had a very dirty mind... when I was about 12, the same age as I'm writing for (!) Thanks for the rest of your insights, too.
I would be grateful for your comments on the first 3 sentences on my third novel... I'm still digesting your comments about my first novel, and we won't be going into the details of the mess my second novel's in... the three sentences are... (and before you ask, there aren't any more novels...)
Nobody alive on Venus in 2557 could have forgotten the bizarre events of the spontaneous tornados, upward lightening and shooting plasma bolts. Weathermen labelled them as ‘Cause Unknown’, making people worried about the safety of their airborne cities. Unease gave birth to rumours, like the winds would slow down enough to let the cities fall into the acid clouds, or climate changes were on the way to squash the living air layer into oblivion, or even undiscovered aliens on the planet’s surface having been disturbed, were getting their revenge.
Nobody alive on Venus in 2557 could have forgotten the bizarre events of the spontaneous tornados, upward lightening and shooting plasma bolts. Weathermen labelled them as ‘Cause Unknown’, making people worried about the safety of their airborne cities. Unease gave birth to rumours, like the winds would slow down enough to let the cities fall into the acid clouds, or climate changes were on the way to squash the living air layer into oblivion, or even undiscovered aliens on the planet’s surface having been disturbed, were getting their revenge.
For what my two cents are worth (which may not even be two cents);
I'd cut the word "alive" and "shooting" from sentence one. As for the upward lightning , is this explained in the previous novels or later in the story ? I know its an electrostatic discharge between the earth and clouds, so it going the other way seems plausible but I'm no meteorologist. When I first saw this though I thought "how?"
For the second sentence I'd say something like;
"Meteorologists had no explanation for the phenomenon and the uncertainty made the population fear for their airborne cities'
For the third;
"Unease gave birth to rumours; people feared the winds would slow down and let the cities fall into the acid clouds, and others suggested climate changes were on the way to squash the living air layer into oblivion, or even that undiscovered aliens on the planet’s surface having been disturbed and were getting their revenge."
I tried not to change sentence three too much because it's your story and who the heck am I to do that? To my mind it seems a bit long for a sentence though.
As far as letting me know about the "world" of your novel I know they have floating cities and people are scared because of seemingly unnatural events. If that's what you wanted to achieve with those three sentences then you did. I'd just suggest some tidying but I am still new to this.
Well, it needed smoothing out. Other than that, it's kind of distant and I would hope that a character would show up soon. Also, the first sentence seems to indicate that all this happened some time in the past, rather than in the story's present.
Hey, I like the idea of this paragraph, the setting sounds pretty awesome. There's a few things in the writing I think could be tightened up. The parts highlighted in red strike me as redundant or unnecessary. The blue is what I would replace it with. I know you want to pack as much info into these sentences as you can, but you don't want to overdo it or it becomes impossible to digest.
I thought mentioning the alive people couldn't forget wasn't needed. By just saying people you're saying the same thing, since dead people don't have consciousness. No need to point out they are alive.
I also don't think you should mention the year in the beginning. By mentioning people there, we know it's the future, and you can drop the exact year at a later point in the book. By putting it in the first sentence, it adds to the confusion.
I think you need a better word than weatherman. I think someone else said cosmologist or something like that. Weatherman doesn't fit the setting.
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I haven't completed this story, but this is from the novel that I am writing.
"It had been five years since my hands had held a firearm. I thought I was free. I thought it was over. Then, they assigned me to a new mission. It was a bizarre mission, to say the least."
"It had been five years since my hands had held a firearm. I thought I was free. I thought it was over. Then, they assigned me to a new mission. It was a bizarre mission, to say the least."
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This is five sentences
I like the first three, though I wonder why they're written as dialogue.
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If only we could somehow include '3 sentences' in the thread title.
You're such a dreamer. /derail
sorry, I couldn't resist.
Three sentences are all you get in this thread.
The first sentence is a little wordy. Should be "...since I'd held a firearm." How else would he or she hold it except with hands?
Anyway, I'd keep reading.
Hi all. I'm not sure I'm doing this right, but here goes anyway. I'm new here and don't have a handle on the protocol yet, so forgive me if I'm stepping on toes.
This is how I think it works ; submit three sentences of a story you are working on for YA readers. Is there more to it than that?
Well, anyway, here it is...here they are...here are three sentences...sheesh! Okay - I'm posting!
Before I even opened the door I could hear the talking of the clocks, as if a lively dialog was being conducted; a debate concerning the appropriate punishment for lateness, no doubt. I glanced down at the watch on my wrist, feeling guilty for my lack of punctuality and slightly confused at what I was doing here in the first place. Mom had dropped me off, week-end bag clutched to my chest just like a little kid, and after a hasty kiss and a quick squeeze of my hand, she had roared off in a puff of grey exhaust and red grime.
I did it, and I still seem to be breathing. Thanks for any help or suggestions you can share with me...can't believe I'm doing this, but I gotta try!!
This is how I think it works ; submit three sentences of a story you are working on for YA readers. Is there more to it than that?
Well, anyway, here it is...here they are...here are three sentences...sheesh! Okay - I'm posting!
Before I even opened the door I could hear the talking of the clocks, as if a lively dialog was being conducted; a debate concerning the appropriate punishment for lateness, no doubt. I glanced down at the watch on my wrist, feeling guilty for my lack of punctuality and slightly confused at what I was doing here in the first place. Mom had dropped me off, week-end bag clutched to my chest just like a little kid, and after a hasty kiss and a quick squeeze of my hand, she had roared off in a puff of grey exhaust and red grime.
I did it, and I still seem to be breathing. Thanks for any help or suggestions you can share with me...can't believe I'm doing this, but I gotta try!!
This is a brand new story that I'm going to try and write for that Write-About-Dragons 2013 thing. I'm not going to write prose past the first paragraph or so until it starts (June 3rd), but I was hoping to give my first few sentences a good hook ahead of time.
Nash stumbled over the artifact when he went to investigate the site of the most recent worldfire. The dinotown was a wasteland, empty hulls of buildings surrounded by charred remains. But he knew before his first spell that this had been no normal worldfire.
Nash stumbled over the artifact when he went to investigate the site of the most recent worldfire. The dinotown was a wasteland, empty hulls of buildings surrounded by charred remains. But he knew before his first spell that this had been no normal worldfire.
This isn't bad, but I think you'd really benefit from shortening some of the sentences (make the longer ones into two).
It doesn't reach out and GRAB ME but it didn't bore me either. I'm legit curious about what's going on, and that's good, even if it does seem a little wordy.
Good for you for sticking your neck out. It IS hard. Your piece just needed a little restructuring in my opinion. It's a good opener. I'm intrigued.
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Everything works here for me except the first line. First, it lacked spark, reading too much like a direct statement. But as I looked at the whole thing a second time, I realized I didn't know how the artifact tied into anything else. Maybe you get to that in one of your next sentences. If not, if it's just a tidbit of detail, it might be best left out or moved to later sentence.
I like the introduction of "his spell" and "no ordinary worldfire" in the third sentence. I'd keep reading.
Many thanks to Kaarl, BethS and King God Kong Zilla for your thoughtful comments. I kinda needed my writing brain to be put back on the straight and narrow of artistic endeavours... much appreciated.
It now reads like this:
Nobody on Venus would forget the bizarre events of the spontaneous tornados, upward lightening and plasma bolts. Meteorologists labeled them as ‘Cause Unknown’, making people worried about the safety of their airborne cities. Unease gave birth to rumours, ranging from the winds would slow down enough to let the cities fall into the acid clouds, through climate changes would squash the living air layer into oblivion, to undiscovered aliens on the planet’s surface were getting their revenge for beign disturbed.
In answer to a couple of points... the protagonist appears in the sentence immediately after this one, but I didn't dare add it in for fear of the flying sqirrule (and quite right too, Buffy). And yes the upward lightening will be explained later on in the novel.
It now reads like this:
Nobody on Venus would forget the bizarre events of the spontaneous tornados, upward lightening and plasma bolts. Meteorologists labeled them as ‘Cause Unknown’, making people worried about the safety of their airborne cities. Unease gave birth to rumours, ranging from the winds would slow down enough to let the cities fall into the acid clouds, through climate changes would squash the living air layer into oblivion, to undiscovered aliens on the planet’s surface were getting their revenge for beign disturbed.
In answer to a couple of points... the protagonist appears in the sentence immediately after this one, but I didn't dare add it in for fear of the flying sqirrule (and quite right too, Buffy). And yes the upward lightening will be explained later on in the novel.
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