Effie's Writing

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potouto
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Effie's Writing

#1 Post by potouto »

As known as Effie's Rejects.I'm waiting for my Mass Effect 3 game to be installed again so I figured I should do something fun since apparently this is taking some time. So I pick up a few prompts and decide to write them, see what will come out from my hands and head. I will update this thread with more works in the future :3
i.
For many things, Ciaran is never a curious child, he does what he was told and he followed it. His parents never complain about his obedience and pleased with his behaviors. He learns from the harder days, something is better hidden. However, Ciaran's only a child, once he asked a question, something concerns him.
Sea blue eyes gaze at his mother lazily, a few strands of dark hair hanging themselves in his vision. Not that he minds, it just made him a bit sleepy. "Mother." The first word he speaks after staring at her, the sound almost as a whisper.
She glances down at him, still paying attention the threads she's sewing in her hands. "What's it, Ciaran?" Her voice's warm, a voice soothes him into every of his peaceful sleep. "Why..." He continues, hesitating at his question. "...Why are people afraid of me, mother?"
The word he used, afraid. She knows just may be, she worries, he knows the reason and he wants to hear it from her.May be. "Don't be silly, honey." She chooses to lie, she even dares to smile kindly at him. "They respect you. You're the Prince of Venthymia, inheriting the bloodline of the strongest." Her calming makes her words appear as fact.
"You will become King one day. It's natural." And he believes, without a blink, he trusts every of his mother's words. After that one time, he never asks his mother any questions. Simply because there's no other chance.
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Re: Effie's Writing

#2 Post by RotGtIE »

Effie's writing needs some serious work at the fundamental level. RotGtIE's going to do his best to help. He's going to stop speaking in the third person about himself now.

Firstly, throw in some line spacing between your paragraphs. Nobody wants to climb a wall of text. They might fall and break their hip or something. Don't break peoples' hips. It's not nice. Moving on.
For many things, Ciaran is never a curious child, he does what he was told and he followed it. His parents never complain about his obedience and pleased with his behaviors. He learns from the harder days, something is better hidden. However, Ciaran's only a child, once he asked a question, something concerns him.
Every single one of these sentences is incoherent. I'm sorry, but there's just no other way to say it. It's like reading a babelfish translation. You have got to work on your basic sentence structure and understanding of basic English grammar rules. Your first sentence switches between past and present tense and the thought you are trying to express is not clear. Your second sentence uses the present tense despite obviously describing past events (his parents never complained) and you have completely neglected an essential to be verb to make the second clause sensible (his parents were pleased with his behavior). The meaning of your third sentence is mystifying, in a very bad way. Ciaran has harder days? What does that mean? Harder because he has to do more manual labor? Harder because he is increasingly confused despite his aversion to asking questions or disobeying? The second half of this sentence only serves to further confuse the reader; what is meant by "something better is hidden?" Better than what? Hidden how, or where? It is impossible to discern what is being referred to by this statement. In the final sentence of this paragraph, you once again switch between the present and past tense - twice, in fact!

This is tragic. You've got a potentially powerful scene building up in your mind and you are failing to convey that power to your audience because you are failing to attend to the fundamentals of writing. Only after reading through the entire passage and desperately trying to re-read and interpret what I thought your meaning might have been could I come close to discerning your purpose in writing this excerpt. It looks like you're trying to portray an innocent child who is becoming increasingly aware that he is treated differently than other children for reasons he does not yet understand, and he is becoming deeply unnerved by the doubts forming in his mind. It's moving, but not if I have to go back and re-read everything like this is an exercise in cryptology.
Sea blue eyes gaze at his mother lazily, a few strands of dark hair hanging themselves in his vision. Not that he minds, it just made him a bit sleepy. "Mother." The first word he speaks after staring at her, the sound almost as a whisper.
I see what you're going for here, but you need to work on your fundamentals before you try to get stylish. The way you introduce the boy's "sea blue eyes" disembodies them from him. That creates a bizarre image in the reader's mind, which the reader is forced to correct as they must again stop and try to translate what you actually meant from what you actually wrote. Please don't make me think, even for a split second, that there is a pair of disembodied aquatic eyeballs staring down this poor kid's mother. Forget her - I'm the one who's going to have a heart attack from that! In your second clause, you create another bizarre image by attributing the phrase "hanging themselves" to strands of hair. I know you're trying to be artistic with your use of language, but the result comes out, to put it lightly, as being very weird.

You're also treading on passive-voice territory here. Passive voice is more often than not the wrong voice to use when writing a narrative like this. It sounds stylish while you're doing it, but to the reader it is a very different experience; they are basically getting all of their information in reverse order and that forces them to go back and piece together what they've just read so that they can make sense of it. It's disruptive and it pulls the reader's focus away from envisioning the scene you've written. Approach use of the passive voice very sparingly, if at all.

"Not that he minds" is a strange way to start a sentence which follows a sentence about the boy gazing at his mother. The clause about the hair dangling in his face is at best an aside, not the main point of the previous sentence. Focusing on that aside and making it the main topic of the next sentence is jarring. Additionally, it's a tad weird to describe hair dangling in someone's face as merely making them tired. When I have loose strands of hair obstructing or obscuring my vision, what comes to mind is "annoying," not "sleep-inducing." This kind of awkward statement is going to distract the reader into wondering why something that typically annoys people is making this kid sleepy. Does his hair have chloroform in it? Does he have narcolepsy? These are silly and distracting questions that the reader doesn't need to have bouncing around in his already-scatterbrained head. Don't encourage this nonsense.

It may come as a surprise to you, but the last sentence in this paragraph is a fragment. You have no predicate. It is unclear whether the subject of this intended sentence is "the first word" or "the sound." You have failed to answer either of the following questions: "What about the first word he speaks to her?" or "What about the sound which is almost as a whisper?" Don't think that a group of words is a fragment only due to short length. Your sentence needs a subject and a predicate to be a sentence. Fragments have their place in prose, but this is not one of them.
She glances down at him, still paying attention the threads she's sewing in her hands. "What's it, Ciaran?" Her voice's warm, a voice soothes him into every of his peaceful sleep. "Why..." He continues, hesitating at his question. "...Why are people afraid of me, mother?"
It looks like you meant to say that she was still paying attention to the threads she was sewing. I liked where you were going with this thought, but you didn't capitalize on it like you could have. This is an excellent opportunity to develop her character, particularly in relation to the boy. He's obviously in a disturbed state of mind, and he calls out to her before speaking, rather than just doing what children ordinarily do when they have a thought - blurt it out immediately with no care or concern for what anybody else was doing at the time. Yet she completely misses the signs and can't even be bothered to stop her sewing to offer her full attention to her son. This should be a somewhat alarming display of emotional negligence, and if you develop it, the reader will gobble the idea right up. But it needs more space; a brief dependent clause won't do. I would throw in something like "She glances down at her questioning child, merely startled by the realization of his presence at her feet. Turning back to her sewing, the woman whom this boy calls 'mother' continues her work while delivering her reply. "What is it, Ciaran?""

I get that you threw in the bit about her voice being warm and soothing, so maybe you didn't want her to be the cold and distant mother type, but if that's the direction you wanted to go with her character, I'd suggest maybe giving her enough presence of mind and consideration for the attention of others to put down the damn sewing while she's speaking to her own son!

On that note, aren't these people royalty? Doesn't that make her a queen or an empress or something? What's she doing sewing? What a menial task for a woman of unsurpassed status in her own society! Also, the sentence "What's it, son?" is just...not something that is even said among commoners, let alone posh-ass royalty. The contraction is so blunt and brief as to be orcish! Not what you were going for, I think.

After the boy stammers at "Why..." you write that he continues before you write that he hesitates. This is chronologically incorrect and it will throw off the reader. I know it seems mechanical, but your reader will process the words you write in the order that they are written. They need to see that the hesitation comes before the continuation. Also, it's a bit awkward to say that he hesitates at his own words, as if they are external or opposed to him. He's hesitating because he's choking, or because he doesn't quite know how to phrase what he wants to say. Answer for yourself why this boy is hesitating, and you will find the correct phrasing to describe his hesitation before he is able to continue.
The word he used, afraid. She knows just may be, she worries, he knows the reason and he wants to hear it from her.May be. "Don't be silly, honey." She chooses to lie, she even dares to smile kindly at him. "They respect you. You're the Prince of Venthymia, inheriting the bloodline of the strongest." Her calming makes her words appear as fact.
"You will become King one day. It's natural." And he believes, without a blink, he trusts every of his mother's words. After that one time, he never asks his mother any questions. Simply because there's no other chance.
Again, your first sentence is actually a fragment. It's not a complete thought. You have a subject with no predicate. That won't do.

You need some kind of conjunction between "she knows" and "just maybe, she worries," and you must not substitute "may be" for "maybe." They do not mean exactly the same thing. It's enough of a difference for the reader to notice when you misuse one in place of the other. When you continue with "he knows the reason," you again become unclear in your meaning. Do you mean to say that he knows why he is feared, or that he knows why she worries? Clarity is needed here.

Notice how your sentence about her choice to lie and smile kindly at her son consists of two completely independent clauses which support each other with their content? That's a great time to use a semicolon, rather than a comma.

Venthymia is a curious name for a nation whose prince has a Gaelic name. Good on you for using real world etymology for the boy's name, but don't stop there. Try to use names inspired by more Gaelic etymology for the places and other people in your story. It will help immerse the reader in your world by giving it a consistent setting for them to relate to.

Your sentence following her words is yet another fragment. Her calming what makes her words appear as fact? You are missing the subject of this sentence. Her calming tone, perhaps?

Again, I would advise against the use of contractions in the vernacular of royalty. These are noble, well-educated people at the top of their society. It is unlikely that they would stoop to use common language and contractions when they could instead speak as the elitists they are. So far you've got this queen sewing and using lots of contractions, and that's not very queen-like behavior. It makes me forget that these characters are supposed to be of the nobility. Don't make me forget things. I have a bad enough memory as it is.

You've got two clauses in the next sentence which are awkwardly stapled together. I guess you meant to say that he unblinkingly or unflinchingly believed his mother's words. You forgot to write "one" after "every" in regard to his mother's words, and the "he trusts" is redundant with the "and he believes" part of this sentence. I recommend omitting one or the other, or restructuring this sentence altogether.

Again you start out speaking in a sort of pseudo-past tense, then switch to the present tense in the middle of a sentence. I strongly recommend using the past tense for this entire passage. In the first place, the whole scene is a recollection, and in the second, it is obvious that you are having difficulty expressing everything you are trying to get across with the present tense alone. Your indecisiveness in attempting to use both tenses only serves to obscure the chronology of the events in this passage and confuse the reader as a result.

Your writing needs a lot of work, particularly in the realm of elementary sentence composition. I strongly recommend you practice diagramming sentences before you commit yourself to writing a story. You need to be able to determine whether all the necessary components of a complete thought have been put to paper before you raise the pen and call your work complete. If you don't notice, your readers certainly will. And if you make too many elementary mistakes too early on, they won't be reading long enough to enjoy the story you are trying to share with them. Don't do your audience that disservice.

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Re: Effie's Writing

#3 Post by potouto »

I nearly suffocated because of laughing when I saw your post. No disrespect action intended, I laughed mostly because someone actually care to critic my bad writing. Thank you for the wall of words you spent your time typing.

This is mostly a habit because our writing practice at school usually require a paragraph with 10-12 sentences. That's probably why but I always try to keep in mind to break down to a few sentences per paragraph.

I'm still confused with the past and present tense till now. Even I made myself confused after I revised my works. The one you pointed out, somebody else told me and I was going to fix it but then I saw your post and then, well, we all know what happened next. I do realize I have been vague in this. That was probably 'something is better when stay hidden'. I think I need to read more to help myself improve with my writing.

I might go back and rewrite this sometimes later today. And try my best to make my intention vivid to the reader. But yes, you have come close to the meaning of it. Sorry for all the trouble you went through to understand the meaning of this short story.

Being artistic wasn't what I aim for when I write this. Most of time, I always write subconsciously and if I remember this right, I didn't edit this so the blame is on my carelessness. Hmm, but of course you're right that it would sound very weird at this part, I will pay more attention next time.

This might as well be the warning for me to continue and learn more about fundamentals and characters' body language. You remind me I have a lot to learn, especially the grammar part, again, thank you for your time, I really appreciate this.
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