Comments | findmeakor: The Great Write Meme

findmeakor

The Great Write Meme

Feb 18, 2006 00:31

Ok, so I thought it would be fun to do a little informal critique on each other's fiction. The idea stemmed from blessed_beast's The Icon Truth Meme, for icon makers.

THE GREAT WRITE MEME- Comment with your username, and those willing shall reply with thoughts on any fiction, fandom or original, that you compose. That means it does not make a difference what ( Read more... )

the great write meme

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tabaqui February 21 2006, 22:26:55 UTC

tabaqui

tabaqui February 22 2006, 00:34:21 UTC

You are the only one in the whole world that can make me go, Hey, Spander, YAY! More now!

tabaqui February 22 2006, 01:45:10 UTC

*beams*
*basks*
Thank you!

tabaqui February 22 2006, 03:35:07 UTC

I honestly do not have concrit to offer because I have always found your fiction to be impeccable - interesting plots, great characterization, and incredible attention to detail. Thank you for continuing to write.

tabaqui February 22 2006, 04:06:12 UTC

Thank you so much.
:)

tabaqui February 22 2006, 04:06:33 UTC

You are an absolutely exquisite writer and when it comes to characterization or plotting, you are wonderful.

The only crit I have is a purely stylistic:

1) Your constant use of dashes needs to be limited severally. Not ever sentence needs a dash; split the sentences up or try it with commas, or semi-colons, something. The constant use of dashes makes it impossible to read and I get thrown out of a story I really don't want to be thrown out of. It gets to the point where it's become hard for me to read your stories at all, which truly sucks as I love them.

2) Less italics. Please. Not everything needs to be emphasized.

3) Your paragraphs need to be much, much smaller.

Again, this is all purely formatting, not the words themselves, but the eye needs smaller chunks to fully understand the beauty of your words. Make your sentences flow better (less dashes, less italics, spacing them better) and there will be nothing at all for anyone to concrit about.

tabaqui February 22 2006, 05:28:29 UTC

Firstly - thank you ( ... )

tabaqui February 22 2006, 14:20:24 UTC

Italics: Definitely keep some. In my own writing I overuse them as well, although time has helped curtail this activity somewhat, so I'm not at all suggesting you get rid of all of them. That'd defeat the purpose because your emphasis is usually very valid. But try and keep it to only one or two a paragraph? Definitely not more than one a line as you very, very frequently do. It's similar to people who write established characters in dialect -- we don't need to be told, because we already know it's there. Save it for the times the emphasis does something, not just a word that gets stressed in your mind when you 'hear' what you're writing. It'll save a hell of a lot of grief, because otherwise reading your work makes me feel like I'm hyperventalating -- or that the characters are ( ... )

tabaqui February 22 2006, 21:45:47 UTC

I *know* i don't have two characters talking in the same paragraph - my own re-re-reading and my beta(s) won't allow for that.

And the occasional one-line paragraph works for emphasis.
But.

I detest extremely choppy stories and so i guess you'll have to live with longer paragraphs. If the idea/theme/subject of the paragraph changes then, yes, new paragraph, but i'm not going to just stick in a break 'cause i'm over ten lines or something.

I did notice i was using dashes as commas, which isn't a good habit, so that will get more scrutiny.

Thanks!
:)

ladycat777 February 23 2006, 01:16:19 UTC

I *know* i don't have two characters talking in the same paragraph - my own re-re-reading and my beta(s) won't allow for that.

Entirely possible; I haven't read recently enough to say with any certainty and I'm familiar enough with your betas to know they're good.

As an example, though, you used a dash above and you didn't need to; a semi-colon would work better, or a new sentence, or maybe it's just that I'm used to the em-dash (the longer version) and the shorter one looks choppy to me. Eh *shrug*

I detest extremely choppy stories and so i guess you'll have to live with longer paragraphs. If the idea/theme/subject of the paragraph changes then, yes, new paragraph, but i'm not going to just stick in a break 'cause i'm over ten lines or something.
What I mean is that your paragraphs are too much, and your story goes from being potentially too choppy to having things crammed down the readers throat. I'm not suggesting arbitrarily breaking things off, of course, and you will have more longer paragraphs than shorter -- that's the ( ... )

tabaqui February 23 2006, 01:30:37 UTC

As an example, though, you used a dash above and you didn't need to; a semi-colon would work better, or a new sentence, or maybe it's just that I'm used to the em-dash (the longer version) and the shorter one looks choppy to me.See, there my poor memory/lack of education fails me. I can't *remember* what a semicolon is properly used for, and if i read about one, i'll forget it by the next time i'm ready to *use* one. Grammar rules have *always* tripped me up, i barely know what a noun is (yes, seriously), and i just don't have any idea. The dash thing, yis. I noticed them in the place of commas, which is not good ( ... )

ladycat777 February 23 2006, 01:33:19 UTC

Aaand crap, I gave myself away if you didn't know already. This is what I get while posting when I feel this crapsastic. Anyway -- not like you couldn't guess, probably :)

Want me to beta something, at some point? A short thing, just to show you the places I think where there could be changes, etc? You wouldn't have to accept any of it because yeah, a lot of this is pure cosmetics.

And I don't know grammar either. I didn't learn a damned thing until I took latin and even still I piece things together based on what my beta's tell me and what people like Yin try and drum through my skull. I'm very instinctive when it comes to writing, so you are in marvelous company as far as that goes :)

tabaqui February 23 2006, 01:41:08 UTC

To be honest?
I was utterly baffled and clueless. Heh. *hugs you hard*

I am *just now*, after a year of having rere bop me in the head, doing 's/s' right. Most of the time. Is that lame, or what?

Yup yup, *mhaaaaaaaaa-velous* company.
*beams*

And yis!
Lemme...email.

*pet pet pet*
Hope you feel better soon!
I'm sorry my lj color bothers you - it's a nice low-saturation, easy-on-the-eyes color for me. I cannot read an lj who's colors are super-saturated or a dark color *red* on black or dark grey. Gah.

ladycat777 February 23 2006, 01:44:34 UTC

I can't read the red colors either; lately I'm finding just about anything other than black on white is painful so yeah, it's not like you're the culprit there -- and I can totally copy&paste to a word doc, easy-peasy.

And was that baffled in a bad way? Cause really -- all of this is cosmetic with an eye to structural, not exactly 'you suck' territory, as you don't :)

Email whenever you're ready, there's no rush on any of this!

tabaqui February 23 2006, 02:10:16 UTC

That's cool. I have color-issues, too, but... I tend to be all avoidy and 'oh, i can read this!!'
And then be all dizzy. Heh.

No, no, baffled in a 'who could this be?' way. Not bad. I was thrilled to get some crit. Heh.

*uses totally off-topic icon, just 'cause it's *new*!!!*

tabaqui February 22 2006, 04:41:42 UTC

You make me want to write better. Your work inspires me within my own. I love all of your stories, but your "Letters" stands tall as one of the finest stories I've ever read. There's so much truth there, and you handle it beautifully.

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