Comment-seeking
Jun. 23rd, 2010 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I'm trying to hone my fiction writing as well as hopefully create a longer story. I realize that it's possibly too short to meaningfully comment on, but I'd like to ask for some feedback on the brief scene I posted yesterday. More specifically, there are two things I'd like to ask:
1) How did you find the length of the "Veiran trying to get away from a high place" part? Was it about right, or should I have made the tension last longer? (Did you feel there was any tension in the first place?)
2) Did the scene make you interested in the characters? Suppose you were at a bookstore looking for something to buy and this was the first page of a book you happened to grab and look at. Would you turn the page to read more, put down the book and move on to the next one, or buy the thing?
Don't be kind, don't be mean - be honest. Thanks!
EDIT at 15:31 West Coast Time (GMT -7): I edited the original based on feedback from
alicorn24 and
alekseiriikonen, so if you're commenting, make sure you've read the most recent version!
1) How did you find the length of the "Veiran trying to get away from a high place" part? Was it about right, or should I have made the tension last longer? (Did you feel there was any tension in the first place?)
2) Did the scene make you interested in the characters? Suppose you were at a bookstore looking for something to buy and this was the first page of a book you happened to grab and look at. Would you turn the page to read more, put down the book and move on to the next one, or buy the thing?
Don't be kind, don't be mean - be honest. Thanks!
EDIT at 15:31 West Coast Time (GMT -7): I edited the original based on feedback from
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 07:07 pm (UTC)2. If I didn't know you wrote this, I wouldn't have gotten farther than what you wrote in a bookstore. (Although my behavior in bookstores is strange - I only ever buy things that I have *already read*, or anticipate that I am definitely going to love because the prior book in the series or other work by the author was so good. So if it had your name on it, I might buy it - but then I wouldn't have looked at page one first.) It seems like the Naie's eyes are trying to be significant somehow, but I'm left cold by hints of significance with no suggestion of *how*. Similarly, I can't care about the (shared?) Warrior-Saint related ambition when I have no clue what one of those might be.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 08:20 pm (UTC)I was a bit worried about whether I'd described the situation enough when I wrote that. I've had a bad tendency to do too much info-dumping in long stories in the past, and this isn't the first time that I've over-compensated and ended up with too little information. Let's see. Suppose the story had mentioned a small keep, with three walls on the sides and a steep mountain cliff making up the fourth. Inside the walls are several buildings, the tallest of which is maybe four or five stories tall. Veiran is sitting on the edge of the roof of that one, his feet dangling in the air. Would that have been enough information? (And now that I've described it, I can see that I should definitely have included at least some of that.)
The Warrior-Saint thing was primarily meant to make the reader curious about what that's all about, as well as to give a hint about Veiran's personality (ambitious). It wasn't anything the reader was supposed to really care about yet, as such. The main tension in the scene was intended to come from just the fear of falling, regardless of why exactly he was there. I was hoping that it would make one curious enough to keep reading to find out more, though.
"That would have been simple enough" is silly, on purpose. That one was partially there to show that Veiran's still a kid, and doesn't really always think things through, nor have that good of a concept of how his emotions really work. Maybe that one would have worked better if I'd mentioned his age earlier? Perhaps also make him a bit younger.
I find it interesting that you interpreted there to be a hint of signicance to Naie's eyes. That was another thing that was mostly just there to hint at his personality (innocent and sensitive, even for a child).
no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 08:41 pm (UTC)In fewer than a hundred words wherein Naie appears, you mention his eyes twice (once to describe them - as being unusual, moreover - and once when Veiran looks at them). Of course I thought they were significant.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 10:28 pm (UTC)Ouch.
I made a bunch of edits based on your comments. Is it better now?
(And although I changed it to remove the second mention of Naie's eyes, now I'm thinking if I should make them somehow significant. Thanks for the idea. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 10:33 pm (UTC)This seems awkward.
"the ladder he'd used to get up here"
This is entirely a pet peeve, not an actual mistake - but I hate indexicals in past-tense fiction. People talking about "here" and "now" surrounded by indications that it's some time ago and elsewhere are jarring.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 10:37 pm (UTC)Do you have a suggestion for a replacement? I think my thoughts are being contaminated by a Finnish sentence structure.
People talking about "here" and "now" surrounded by indications that it's some time ago and elsewhere are jarring.
Good point. I changed that to "the ladder he'd used to get on the roof".
no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 09:38 pm (UTC)2. I don't think I'll buy any fiction book in the foreseeable future, or look for new ones to read, since I already own a backlog (including physical books) of fiction I consider very very good, but don't ever manage to read.
As to comments on other stuff, the sentence that starts with "Though" was such that upon reading I wanted to comment that it doesn't really work as well as some other solution conceivably could. But that was the only part of the thing you posted that made me want to offer constructive criticism, generally I thought the thing was good.
I'm sorry that I'll write this current comment in a rush, and won't now go back to review the "Though-sentence", so I could give more specific feedback on it.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 08:51 am (UTC)Since the language used isn't something I'm good enough at to start nitpicking textual expression, I won't do that. (I think that sentence alone shows my lack of expertise. ^^')
If at least one of the boys is gay, hooray! Yes, I'm THAT lame.
Oh, yeah, you asked something..the lenght is good, I'd say. There's no such thing as a fully done script, but this is done enough. I wouldn't buy it, but I don't buy any books. I would request that the library would buy it for me to read, though.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-25 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-01 12:52 am (UTC)This probably isn't going to have any *explicit* lessons (that is, intentional) in rationality, but part of the planned story could probably be interpreted as implicit lessons.