(Untitled)

[heddychaa]

I haven't posted in awhile, mainly because I haven't written in awhile! I scrapped one of my main projects because I just decided it was getting waaayyyy too heavy and, well, boring, so I've been trying since then to pull together some semblance of a working novel idea that will be fun for me to write / others to read. I've also been working really

Comments

[lovelineny]

“He raised you when you were a boy, isn’t that enough?”

“Enough? Listen, he fucking drank eighty percent of the time and slept the other twenty. They were right to take me away.”

*this reads to me (or at least the response line) like a way of getting expostion across through dialogue-- the two people talking seem to already have a sense of intimacy, and so it doesnt work for me in the sense that your character doesn't seem like the type to go temper-ish on his foster mother just yet, it doesn't seem earned right away-- perhaps this is exposition we find later on, through conversation with the father? we don't need as readers to know everything right away.
the simple idea of someone meeting their biological father for the first time in years is an arc enough to keep readers interested in flipping the pages for the backstory.

a fiction workshop teacher once told me for a beginning, "you only need as much plot to hang your hat on." it's definitely the case here, so don't feel pressure to push :) i'd keep reading!

[heddychaa]

Great! Thank you! Kazuki does have a rather fierce temper, which will be getting to show itself pretty shortly. I don't know why I felt like I'd needed that dialogue, mostly because I wanted there to be a reason Kazuki would go to his father's. Alot of people have commented on it, so maybe it's a memory that I'll save for a later time. Hmm!

[suki_fleet]

I found this engaging and interesting. I'd want to read more:)

“But even if he wasn’t there for you then, you’re not like him. I didn’t raise you,” she’d patted his cheek twice, “to be like him.” I wasn't sure that this quite followed on from the rest of the conversation. Kazuki was concerned with why he'd didn't want to see his father, and this concern not to be like him doesn't seem to follow smoothly. Maybe add a bit more to their conversation?

I really like the end, it's subtle and yet hints at quite a lot:)

[heddychaa]

I don't really want to let on yet why Kazuki's father needs his son right now, only that he's become dependent, and so that's why foster-Mum thinks it's Kazuki's responsibility to go, even if his father didn't do the same for him. I think a couple more lines of dialogue might to the trick if I don't just move the conversation elsewhere.

[smeddley]

I’d probably read more - you’ve left a lot of questions unanswered, a lot of dangling plot-points, and I wonder where you’re going to go with them.

As for the ‘show vs. tell’ - I admit I’ve never understood that particular phrase. I think more in passive vs. active voice. I think it’s the same concept, but… I’m not sure. Here’s my example:
“He raised his hand to knock, but even as he did so, the door was opening and he found himself staring at a familiar face.”
versus:
“Raising his hand to knock, he was startled when the door swung open to reveal a familiar face.”
In the second one you’re incorporating the reader in the action, instead of passively feeding them the story.

Does that make sense?

I really like the ending, if you want to say it ‘signifies’ things, it does that in spades. The loss of childhood, connection, all that good stuff. A good point to play up.

[smeddley]

Ah! That's the best (and most creative way) anyone has every explained it to me. Then my point was more just passive verses active, I guess. Or maybe I had no point. ::shrugs::

::moves vase out of reach::

[heddychaa]

My boyfriend watches Bleach obsessively, but I got a bit tired out of it mid Soul-Society arc. Are the character names familiar, or just the fact that my cast is Japanese?

I didn't really want to explain alot when it came to Kazuki's relationship with his father, not just yet. I think I might be adding a bit more to the dialogue, just to explain that last line, but other than him not wanting to see or take care of his father, I don't want to give too much about them away right off the bat.

So now too much showing and not enough telling! Kazuki yells into the buzzer because he's become anxious about hearing his father's voice, not because he's excited. I think that might be fixed by building up on his anxiety a bit more.

He's not inside apartment 317. Maybe I should say "the hallway around apt 317 smelled like. . ." to make it clearer?

A linguistic cue is me trying to say succinctly that Kazuki speaks both languages using accents and intonations from both in each. I didn't know a better way to explain it! XD

[desolateangel83]

Don't worry, I often forget the "show not tell" rule too. It's always the basic concepts that we forget the most, don't you think?

I'm intrigued by the hook. I'd like to know more about Aizen and Kazuki, and why, when they see each other, a shout-fest immediately begins. Also, the part where the foster mother says Kazuki was taken away for mostly selfish reasons, I want to know more about that too. Now going back to the "show don't tell" thing, I think this could be applied to the apartment building. We get a faint idea of it based on the description "dingy but quite run down." But perhaps you could describe it more. What do the outside walls look like? Are there windows broken? Stuff like that.

Good luck!

[heddychaa]

It sure is the basic concepts, yarrrgh! This one is the worst, for me! I'll come up with something clever, but then think it's apparently too clever for the reader to figure out on its own, and I'll ruin the effect of it by explaining it the very next line!

I can definitely do a bit more apartment description, though! I need a way to build up the tension leading to Kazuki pre-empting the sound of his father's voice, so some apartment description could go in there. Thanks!