Lemma Soft Forums

Hello, good people of the forum. I'm not fond of my writing style and I was in the middle of writing a VN, when I realized the writing deserves a little bit more color. I don't think it's terrible but I think it could use more. Anyway, I posted couple of samples of writing not from my work in progress, and wondered if a few fine folks would look them over? Please tell me what I could do to improve.

The first is a sample from a writing assignment I had in my English class this semester. I was supposed to write an excerpt of what could be a larger story. This is an example of my prose writing.


The second example is from a failed attempt at writing a fan fiction. It was for Mass Effect 2, not that I think it makes a difference. This is a bit of a dialogue exchange between Female Shepard and a man named Kaidan.



Any takers?

I'm no master writer but I notice that your sentence structure doesn't vary too much. Some of them are rather choppy and break up the flow, which may be the main thing that's bothering you. Don't be afraid to combine sentences and learn to hear what sounds good and flows easily. Also, you aren't consistent with your tenses. Read over a few sentences and you'll notice that it sounds off. If you don't mind, I'll use some of your sentences as examples.

I would rewrite it as: Notice how I changed a few words and placed emphasis on some of them. IDK if this is better, but that's just how I would write it >_>

Choppy describes this part well. Sometimes short and direct sentences work well, but be careful not to over use them. They get tiring. After a long time, you get bored. Reading them over and over again just gets hard. Do you see what I mean? You want to save these kinds of sentences for ideas you really want to emphasize.
My rewriting of the same idea. IMO, this flows better.

Let's focus on the dialogue. These are just my stylistic preferences, mind you.
Periods are so dull. They don't convey that much emotion, as compared to exclamation points and question marks. I mean, I love exclamation points! As opposed to loving exclamation points. Remember that the audience can't hear the exact tone of a piece when it's all text, so you need to give them clues. You get what I'm saying? Keep them engaged with emotion.

But the main thing you should keep in mind is that writing a VN is much more different than other traditional forms of writing. You no longer have to pay so much attention to describing the setting, and you need to focus more on dialogue. It's like writing a play, almost. I'd say you're writing decently, and there's some room for improvement. Still, you're pretty good. Experiment with those other punctuation marks; semi-colons are a favorite of mine As are exclamation points! Question marks are cool too, don't you agree? Colons: the thing following it doesn't even need to be a sentence. Just play around with your keyboard and vary your sentence structure.
For reference, here's a handy-dandy website with grammar rules. I use this site all the time and it's trustworthy. Sometimes there's a pop-up, so just click out of it and you can pretty much relive your English classes >_>

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@Rewritten Ennui: I am not so sure if she wants it to sound like that. (first couple of sentences)
I think she was going for a certain feel, and I felt that I was in a medieval fairy tale when I read those first two sentences. But I really understand what you were trying to say. The way you put it was a lot clearere. I agree with you on the rest.

I think that it is really hard to write something well, and I think that this was a very good try. I am not very good at fiction writing, but I do notice some things that could potentially detract from the overall feel. As Rewritten Ennui wrote, you do repeat similar sentence structures. Its a hard thing not to do, because one almost feels like there is a rhythm, and it feels quite unnatural to break up the rhythm when you finally get into the flow of writing. This sort of thing is quite common. I used to roleplay online with a bunch of other players, but couldn't help but get tired of reading the either incredibly long emotes/says or incredibly short ones. There was no middle ground. Being rather naive towards the methods of fictional writing, I would fall into this trap all the time, and wonder what was wrong with my story. What was happening was that I knew what I wanted to convey, but it all came out in a big blob of text. Although what I was saying in the middle of the paragraph was related to its beginning, the ties weren't as clear as I would like. To supliment the fact that my emotes weren't organized, I began to write lengthy sentences with as many large words as I could fit. The outcome was somewhat like (okay, a lot like) the second paragraph from your first sample. It had large words and a slight poetic feel to it, but ultimately was amateurish. My sentences seemed heavily contrived and unnatural because I bogged it down so much with unnecessary length.
Of course, I know that story writing is a little different. Stories are longer-term, and require more commitment. The plus-side to a short story format is that you as the author can revise to your heart's content. I will try to make suggestions how you could write it a little better. In the next few paragraphs, I will show you that a bit of revision can go a long way.


I might re-write this like this:
The heroes were just as grand, they came in jewel encrusted armor and owned the land. They would vanquish terrifying foes and leave the world at peace. They were mysterious, and paragons of virtue, no one suspecting that one may have been an author of terrible poetry or cheated heavily at cards.


I might re-write this passage like this:
In the end it doesn't matter, thought Lloyd. He had been one of many in his merry band of cohorts. It suited him fine. There was a certain peace to be had in the anonymity of such a group. Despite all the amenities and accolades he received as a hero, no one seemed to care for the well-being of a public servant. Lloyd drank his ale under the local pub's pavillion, a line of birch trees surrounding two sides of that open area. He was in plain sight, and yet no one approached him.

I have no idea if that is better or not, but it may help if you group some similar ideas together, like I grouped what the heroes had, what they did, and what their personalities were like. I am sorry if I changed the meaning of your sample. I will admit, I am just a student right now, and I don't know a lot about writing. One thing that I have learned though is that it is important to be brutally honest with yourself, but don't insult yourself. If something doesn't sound right, chances are it isn't right. If you can't figure it out, ask a friend if they notice anything. I am sorry if I was too wordy, but I hope you get something out of it.

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Ah, thank you both so much! You have given me a great deal to keep in mind while I'm working. It really is hard to think about variations in the structure when you're writing. I'm not an English major either, so as long as what I see is grammatically correct, I think it's fine. I will take all of what was said and hopefully it will make a difference in the writing of my project.