A huge discussion about my WIP

redsoxboy123 · Mar 9, 2011

Hey guys! Whats up? How are you?

I am working on a YA novel. Its about 4 friends in modern day Boston Massachusetts.

The plot is about my rebellious teenage (he's 14 yrs old) MC and his friends teaming up on an adventure to destroy society. It is a dangerous action packed adventure! However they start to get in way over their heads because they run into rival gangs/drugs, emotions/tragedy, betrayal and some shocking twists!

My story has action, humor, drama, and some romance. Would you like to read about my characters? My MC is a rebel and he is the leader. His best friend is a karate black belt. His other best friend loves computers and has a girlfriend!

I have been on AW for 6-8 months and I must say I have made a big improvement to my writing. Before AW my story looked like shit because it was lacking details and my characters were very very flat. Now it appears like my MC comes to life

I have ideas! For example my MC and his friends just went to a techno club at midnight and they are having a good time! Earlier that day, my MC's friend used his skills to beat up a thief! LOL!
Is it true that having ideas is what makes writing fun?

I'm just working on re editing the first 5-10 chapters of my 1st draft and I have 50 pages. Would anybody like to see my 1st chapter? Just PM me!

I will continue this discussion later! Bye

Phaeal · Mar 9, 2011

This seems to belong in the Beta forum. You might ask a mod to transfer it.

Chris P · Mar 9, 2011

Hey Redsoxboy123! My writing has improved a lot since joining AW. I'm currently polishing a novel I finished just before joining here, as well as working on another and several shorts. This site has been a great help to me.

It sounds like you are looking for a beta reader, in which case you might want to start a thread in the "beta readers, mentors and writing partners" thread. Posting there might make it a little more clear what you're after. You can PM a mod to move this thread if necessary.

Best of luck!

redsoxboy123 · Mar 9, 2011

Damn!

quicklime · Mar 9, 2011

redsoxboy123 said:
Hey guys! Whats up? How are you?

I am working on a YA novel. Its about 4 friends in modern day Boston Massachusetts.
The plot is about my rebellious teenage (he's 14 yrs old) MC and his friends teaming up on an adventure to destroy society. It is a dangerous action packed adventure! However they start to get in way over their heads because they run into rival gangs/drugs, emotions/tragedy, betrayal and some shocking twists!
My story has action, humor, drama, and some romance. Would you like to read about my characters? My MC is a rebel and he is the leader. His best friend is a karate black belt. His other best friend loves computers and has a girlfriend!

I have been on AW for 6-8 months and I must say I have made a big improvement to my writing. Before AW my story looked like shit because it was lacking details and my characters were very very flat. Now it appears like my MC comes to life
I have ideas! For example my MC and his friends just went to a techno club at midnight and they are having a good time! Earlier that day, my MC's friend used his skills to beat up a thief! LOL!
Is it true that having ideas is what makes writing fun?

I'm just working on re editing the first 5-10 chapters of my 1st draft and I have 50 pages. Would anybody like to see my 1st chapter? Just PM me!

I will continue this discussion later! Bye

Redsox,

Two suggestions, and a welcome to the boards:

1. Try subbing some of it in the SYW forum for critique--you never learn as much on your own in as little time as when someone else has a go at your beautiful, lovely words. Once you hit 50 posts you can sub the entire chapter there and pick up a half-dozen crits in a semi-open forum.

2. Looking at this post, find and read the novel "Fireflies" by Piers Anthony--I've described it several times as one man's loving ode to the exclamation point, because the writing was painfully distracting from their over-use. I'm not sure you write like this in your script, but too many exclamation points makes it sound like a 1950's Tom Swift novel, a few more and it looks like it was written by squirrels on crack. Again, not at all sure this is how you write otherwise and I'm only suggesting to try to help, but if you read that book through once or twice, you should see very quickly why you might not want every third sentence to be exclamatory.

Good luck on the book, and again welcome to the site,
Quick

maestrowork · Mar 9, 2011

Post it in SYW.

redsoxboy123 · Mar 9, 2011

@quicklime
Of course I dont write like that. I'm just excited.

I need 50 posts now to start a thread in the SYW.
Besides the errors (?) I made what do you think of the info I posted? The info is very helpful so that you know what my story is about.

Bye.

ChaosTitan · Mar 9, 2011

maestrowork said:
Post it in SYW.

redsoxboy hasn't quite reached the 50 post requirement to post it in SYW.

For now, I'll send this down to the Beta Reader forum.

redsoxboy123 · Mar 9, 2011

Thank you ChaosTitan!

quicklime · Mar 9, 2011

redsoxboy123 said:
@quicklime
Of course I dont write like that. I'm just excited.
I need 50 posts now to start a thread in the SYW.
Besides the errors (?) I made what do you think of the info I posted? The info is very helpful so that you know what my story is about.

Bye.

Honestly I think very little about the stuff you posted, good or bad. That isn't meant to be harsh or dismissive either, but what is going to matter is how they are written. Utterly fascinating work has been written about elaborate fantasy worlds with dragons, or the labyrinths of a delusional mind, but equally engaging books have been written about things as everyday as a guy contemplating infidelity, or a housewife growing lonely. And a shit writer could have written something like "I am Legend" or "Grapes of Wrath" using all the same ideas and plot points, and failed miserably because of the writing.

How well you pace and build characters and plot will always trump "idea", although good ideas are a good place to start. We'll see what you churn out.

redsoxboy123 · Mar 9, 2011

@quicklime
So is Grapes of Wrath a good book? It was written in the 1930's...

quicklime · Mar 9, 2011

redsoxboy123 said:
@quicklime
So is Grapes of Wrath a good book? It was written in the 1930's...

huh?

You seem to be implying the age of the book has some bearing on quality.

Moby Dick and Jane Eyre were written well before that....are they not good books?

It isn't my style; I don't enjoy a lot of older books for the same reason I don't enjoy black and white films--some of them are far better than most modern movies in terms of plot, execution, acting, twists, but the style, language, etc. is distracting.

Grapes of Wrath isn't too bad, although yes, it is a classic and generally considered a very good book. I read Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier and found that harder to enjoy....same with Shakespeare and Moby Dick. To Kill a Mockingbird, also old but not nearly as old, was much more readable for me. Grapes was closer to that.

redsoxboy123 · Mar 9, 2011

@quicklime:
You said "And a shit writer could have written something like "I Am Legend" or "Grapes of Wrath" using all the same ideas and plot points, and failed miserably because of the writing." What is that supposed to mean?

And by idea I meant small things in the plot like the techno club or the thief getting beat up. Whats wrong with my ideas?
Go and look under my profile for my older threads. You will see how I have grown to become the writer I am today! You won't be dissapointed!

Stay tuned...

Cyia · Mar 9, 2011

quicklime said:
Moby Dick and Jane Eyre were written well before that....are they not good books?

No.

redsoxboy123 · Mar 9, 2011

Me and quicklime were discussing how I could make my story better like the pacing of the plot and building characters. Quicklime was using examples (?) to help me understand how character/plot building will always be more important then small plot points that don't make sense.
I thing quicklime is a very big help.

quicklime · Mar 9, 2011

redsoxboy123 said:
Me and quicklime were discussing how I could make my story better like the pacing of the plot and building characters. Quicklime was using examples (?) to help me understand how character/plot building will always be more important then small plot points that don't make sense.
I thing quicklime is a very big help.

so does ciya, although she is not a personal fan of those books.

and likely unaware of her tremendous admiration for me.....

quicklime · Mar 9, 2011

redsoxboy123 said:
@quicklime:
You said "And a shit writer could have written something like "I Am Legend" or "Grapes of Wrath" using all the same ideas and plot points, and failed miserably because of the writing." What is that supposed to mean?
it means the stories worked because of Steinbeck's ability to get into the minds and struggles of the oakies, and paint their struggles and the environment they trudged through. Matheson created a world and he created a man bordering on despair and suicide, as well as the twist on vampires. Give either of them 2-d characters, herky-jerky pacing, or horrible, garbled sentences, and the books would have not gone anywhere, despite their ideas. Idea only gets you so far....mostly, from wandering around to putting your ass in the chair. the rest is dependent on actual work.

And by idea I meant small things in the plot like the techno club or the thief getting beat up. Whats wrong with my ideas? nothing at all. I probably have a dozen books on my shelves where a thief gets a beating, and half that with techno clubs somewhere in them. The point is that in and of itself won't sell a book. I don't feel I can tell you "yes, that will sell," or "No, definately not--go Space Monkeys, Space Monkeys are huge and you'll be the next Twilight if you just do Space Monkeys" because the idea counts for very little compared to the execution. Now your execution may be flawless, I have no idea, I'm just suggesting "ideas" can be spectacularly grandiose or embarassingly small, and still succeed, or fail, in either case--execution matters--how you write matters.
Go and look under my profile for my older threads. You will see how I have grown to become the writer I am today! You won't be dissapointed!

Stay tuned...

tuned...

thothguard51 · Mar 9, 2011

Redsox,

Idea's are a dime a dozen, but if you don't know how to execute those ideas into something that is passable as entertaining, then even the best literary idea on earth will fail...

Of course, entertaining is subjective to each readers individual taste...

Fruitbat · Mar 9, 2011

To answer your question RedSox, it sounds like a fun read, except for the part about them being out to destroy society. To get into a story, I have to like the main character. So he would have to have a good reason to want to destroy society or else I would just think he was a punk, and get annoyed with it.

Also, the adventures sound good, but just going from one adventure to the next might get old if there was no underlying cause. I would like it if the adventures got progressively larger also. In other words, if the MC just kept getting into deeper and deeper trouble in the main plot. JMHO and good luck with it.

Monkey · Mar 9, 2011

Hello, Redsoxboy123, and welcome to the boards.

You only need two more posts to be able to start a thread in SYW...I suggest that make both of those posts IN SYW, commenting on the writing of others and seeing the sort of feedback they've received from other critiquers.

I know I've learned a tremendous amount doing just that.

Also, the critiques here on AW tend to point out any and every little flaw. Some even go into purely stylistic choices. It can be difficult to take on your first read-through if you don't understand what you're getting into.

Critiques at AW generally point out flaws.
Every written thing has flaws, to one point of view or another.
Therefore, your work will get hammered.
Be prepared...and realize that having the flaws of your work pointed out to you means you can fix them and not make the same mistakes next time.

redsoxboy123 · Mar 9, 2011

So its all about the execution. So thats what you meant in the 1st place... Damn, I should have payed more attention.

I'm working on re editing the first few chapters of my 1st draft. Its a lot of hard work but it is neccessary in the literature world. My MC comes alive and you feel like you are following him around the city. Some of my older threads mention giving my character a voice.
An example of a voice from one of my favorite novels:
"If you really want to hear about it you'll probably want to know where I was born and all that David Copperfield kind of crap and what my parents were doing before they had me and all, but they would have two hemmorages a piece if I told you anything personal about them. Besides that stuff bores me..." Guess what novel that is?
I actually do give my MC a voice, I slow down the action to get inside his head and hear his thoughts. Its kinda cool.

You should have seen my story before I came to AW. There was hardly any details, and the events were mashed together. It looked like this:
James moved to a different house.
James met Chris.
James and Chris ran away.
James and Chris became friends.
Chris got beat up...You get the idea. It sucked. What the hell was going on in my MC's life? Now I have the who, what, where, when, why and how of my MC's actions. What do you think of that?

Plus I also have some themes/motifs I want to talk about that I'm trying to add into my story. They are friendship, rebellion, betrayal, growing up, and bravery. What do you think of this idea?

Now I gotta execute my ideas so that they fit in the novel. Wish me luck.

redsoxboy123 · Mar 9, 2011

I have an idea! I'm going to start posting my 1st chapter on SYW!

It has 5,600 words so could I divide it up into pieces? LOL

Guess what? This is the day I've been waiting for because I can finally post my 1st chapter! This is going to be some serious shit! I hope to see you all over there eventually!

quicklime · Mar 9, 2011

don't think you even need to split it. post it up

redsoxboy123 · Mar 9, 2011

Okay

It wont let me! I have 51 posts!

redsoxboy123 · Mar 9, 2011

Nevermind

A huge discussion about my WIP

Training in a Taekwondo studio

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Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred

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Fear the Death Ray

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Around

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Rewriting My Destiny

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A Gentleman of a refined age...

.

Is me.

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