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Jul 2001 PDF Archive
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Tips For Writers...
The reason I've called this page 'Letters To Writers' is because I got the idea when a friend of mine asked me to critique his story. I read it and sent an email back on what I thought and ideas on how he might improve it. Below is that email, plus some tips/help given in the forum. We will add to this as more become available.
BratGirl 
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This was an answer I gave about fight scenes in the forum on October 22, 2001.
Only advice I can give is to treat it (a fight scene) as a dialogue. Meaning, try to stay focused on the character and avoid giving us 'list' of what's happening.
example: To avoid
...The dark soldier slashed at the white one and then the white one slashed back. Then they slashed at eachother and then the other soldiers ran to fight beside them and the dark soldier backed away...
example: to do
...Caine sprung up, spun as quickly as his shell-colored armor would allow him to. He was beginning to wonder, was this dark warrior made of stone? Or the blue-black steel of the armor he wore?
He used the momentum of his spin, swung the broadsword with arms soon too tired to lift it. Even so, his speed was still on and its razors edge flew unerringly to the dark knight's helm...
Hope this made sense? In other words, let the characters 'tell' us by their actions/thoughts just as you would have them do during a dialogue with another character. Get all the senses in there! Not just what it looks like. Think of the horrific sound of being inside the battle. The taste of blood as the weight of a steel helmet jars you into biting your tongue. The frightening pain of wounds and beginning to wonder if you just might not make it out of this one...
*Ahem* Heh... Anyhow, hope this helps?
BratGirl
I wrote this June 19th, 2001. I have omitted my friend's name and a passage from his story
S*****,
Hey-hi. Been reading your story. It's very good. Very well plotted and nicely organized. I'm thinking either you have a written outline, or that you are a very 'outline oriented' person. Very unusual in a relatively new writer, and something I still struggle with. You are also very talented. I told you I wouldn't pick it apart like D******** did, but instead give you 'overall' feedback. Here goes...
The number one and hardest 'rule' of fiction is that the author/narrator is as invisible as possible, and the characters/surroundings/events 'tell' the story. In other words you, the author, should not even be there. This is hardest because the inexperienced writer hasn't yet learned that writing fiction is very much different than 'telling' fiction. And it's very much different than any other kind of writing, creative or academic.
Even for 'experienced' writers, the musing character who is alone is the hardest to capture. In other settings, it is much easier to maintain that rule of fiction. In a setting with more than one character, their dialogue with eachother 'breaks up' the narrative and helps keep the author 'behind' the scenes... This is a lot harder if your character is by himself/herself.
A way to succeed at this is to insert more interaction with his/her surroundings (she looks longingly out the window, he retrieves his book to read some more, etc). And to maybe add some flashback type of memory where the memories of a conversation with actual 'remembered' dialogue could help to 'break up' the narrative of the musings.
My number one critique is that you are too much in the story. You are 'telling' us the story when your characters' interactions with eachother and their surroundings should be telling us. You do succeed in places! Very nicely 'staying behind the scenes' and letting your characters 'take over'. These parts are excellent! Here the characters 'speak for themselves' instead of you just telling us about them.
Obviously, you can't use dialogue everywhere. But internal dialogue with commas to break up his/her thoughts and reactions to surroundings can work just as well. A scent that brings on a poignant childhood memory, a woman's laugh that is reminiscent of a fondly (or angrily) remembered conversation, etc.
Most new writers try to pack everything in, me included! A rule for me (though there are exceptions, especially in character dialogue) is that, if the sentence already has one comma in it, I need to start a new one (or even a new paragraph). Over the years of writing, my style has become so 'clean' that where I used to get critique that my stuff was too 'wordy', now I sometimes get that it needs to be wordier! Go figure. LOL!
Let me wrap it up by saying, very good work! Like I mentioned before, having the organization skills is something you'll depend on later. But right now I would suggest you wait a little on such a loonng story. I do what I call 'sketches'. 200-500 words of just an incident or dialogue with characters that I allow to 'spring to life', unplanned (My own half-done novel is a combination of two such 'sketches'). A story doesn't have to be 'pretold'. Best is when it unfolds as we 'live' it through those characters!
Hehe. STAY OUT OF YOUR STORY S*****! That is my best advice. Hope this helps,
-Lee
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