Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28467653-20160515214806/@comment-28266772-20160517141931

Okay, this is going to get a bit rough. Really rough. Stick with me, and take it all with a natured sense of humour okay? Because everything I write isn’t going to be nice. I’m going to start off by annotating your first paragraph before showing you the same paragraph completely rewritten by me. I’d like you read them both side by side, and consider the differences. I’m them going to go on to detail your four biggest problems. Your switching of tenses, sentence structure, problems with plot description, and the way you convey the sequence of events.

Catherine arrived [where?] a few hours ago, her bags still in the trunk of her car, unopened [unimportant]. Will and Ruby [who?] gave her a quick tour around the town, showed [tense] her the few things that have [tense] changed in the last 20 [should be words] years. Not like a lot of things have [tense] changed. The only important difference was on the corner of Fourth Street and Goodway, [there was] a huge, 40 feet [foot] wide hole, pitch black void [get rid of void] in the middle of the town [unimportant], without a visible bottom [could probably just say bottomless, but it’s up to you].

Vs.

It had been a few hours since Catherine had arrived in her hometown, and she had spent these hours being given a tour of what had changed in the town by her sister and brother-in-law, Ruby and Will. Not that a lot had changed in the last twenty years, although Catherine did notice one big change. In the middle of the town, near the corner of Fourth Street and Goodway was a forty foot wide hole. Its centre, a pitch black void, going on forever without any end in sight.

-

So, about tense. Most stories in English are told in the past tense, although some creepypastas are fond of being set in the present tense. The reason why is because the present tense can offer a quick series of rapid fire ideas and thoughts that, sometimes, are better making a reader feel shock and surprise. But generally setting a story in the present tense, without a good reason, is considered very very bad writing. Someone might write something in the present tense if they were, say, giving a verbal report. People also tend to speak to friends, informally, in the present tense, e.g. “so there I am, staring at the dog and waiting for him to finish his food…”, so if you’re writing a blog in the style of a teenage girl you could get away with it.

Generally though, stick to the past tense. And keep it consistent. The following sentence,

“After the tour, they returned to the family house, which nowadays was led by Ruby instead of their mother” is inconsistent because it’s not clear when the narration is set. The phrase nowadays makes us think that right now, as in right this very second, Ruby is leading the household. It reads better if written,

“After the tour they returned to the family house, which had been led by Ruby since their mother’s death.” This lets us know the timeline a bit more clearly.

As a general tip you should pick a point in time (usually the past) for the action, and keep the references consistent. So the reader knows they are looking back. Avoid references to the present like ‘nowadays’ and make sure any verbs are written in the correct tense. Other common mistakes are to write ‘has’ instead of ‘had’. E.g. “she has never seen…” when you should write “she had never seen…”

Another tip is that every sentence should have a subject, an object and an action. The subject of the sentence is the central part.

E.g. The girl is angry -> the girl is the subject of the sentence.

The object is what the subject is acting on.

E.g The girl is angry at the boy -> The girl is the subject, the boy is the object, and being angry is the action.

Try to make each sentence establish a clear relationship between the subject, the object, and any action that takes place. The following sentence,

“After the tour, they returned to the family house, which nowadays was led by Ruby instead of their mother, the voices of kindergarten children echoed in the unaltered rooms instead of their own”

<p class="MsoNormal">Has multiple subjects and objects and it’s not very clear what refers to what. It’s cluttered, and not easy to read. Grammatically, it’s actually two sentences, because the first half has one subject “they”, one object “the family house”, and one action “being led”, while the second half also has its own subject “the voices of…children”, its own object “the unaltered rooms”, and its own action “echoed”. Each sentence should demonstrate something specific, and unique. It should also contribute directly to the story in a vital and important way.

<p class="MsoNormal">This brings me onto plot.

<p class="MsoNormal">In the paragraph at the top of your story there are descriptions of Catherine’s bags and three different qualifiers for the location of the hole 1)Corner of fourth street, 2)Goodway, 3)Middle of town. Only the last one is really informative. Do we, the reader, need to know any of this? Do we need one sentence telling us the hole is 40 feet wide, and without bottom, as well as another sentence telling us that it is a pitch black void?

<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile the most important pieces of information are absent. Where has Catherine arrived, who are Will and Ruby, how do they relate to Catherine, and how does Catherine relate to the town? This information comes later, admittedly, but if we’re being forced to read that Catherine’s bags are unopened, then we should definitely be getting updates on who she is, where she is, and who she’s with and why. So trim everything that isn’t necessary to the plot and atmosphere. Every single word needs a purpose. It should inform us about either the setting, the characters, the sequence of events, or the atmosphere and mood.

<p class="MsoNormal">Which takes me onto the sequence of events. If I were to trim everything from your story so that there’s only the bare basic sequence of events it would be as follows.

<p class="MsoNormal">Catherine returns to her hometown where there’s a hole in the centre of a street. She meets her sister and brother-in-law at her childhood home. At night when they’re eating food a load of noise happens outside. Catherine’s relatives tell her to be quiet, clearly implying that there is a threat underlying the noise. Catherine demands an explanation, and her brother-in-law, afraid that she will attract the threat, attacks her. The following morning Catherine awakes, sees herself in the mirror, and screams while her family eats breakfast somewhere else.

<p class="MsoNormal">Doesn’t make a lot of sense does it? Not very frightening either. And it’s not just the process of being stripped down either. The plot of the movie alien for example, reads as follows.

<p class="MsoNormal">Some people in space find an SOS. They visit the SOS and find an egg where a giant spider with a vagina for a face throat rapes one of the men. The space people are terrified until suddenly he gets better again. Then one day while they eat, a penis monster fucks its way out of the man’s chest, and eats the crew one by one. Only one person survives by blowing the whole space ship up to escape.

<p class="MsoNormal">Yeah, don’t get me wrong, it’s nonsense but it’s also pretty clear what happens and why. And just off that little summary alone, you could probably guess that the movie is actually fucking terrifying when given the chance to tell its story properly. I mean… there’s an alien penis monster. That’s pretty scary. Your sequence of events on the other hand? Not super clear why anyone does anything, and it’s not very clear why the hole results in terror. I guess something comes out of it? Drags people down? I honestly don’t know.

<p class="MsoNormal">-

<p class="MsoNormal">So I’ve tried to cram as many tips as I could into what I’ve written above. But, can I make a far, far simpler recommendation? Don’t use automated translation services. In fact, the reply you wrote me is written in very good English. You’re clearly competent at using the language, and most people who speak English and only English cannot spell as well as you can. Maybe just try writing your next story in English first, and don’t be afraid to write it however you feel confident. That might mean not going the traditional narrative style you’ve gone for above, and instead portraying something a bit more simply. The same way two friends might email each other back and forth, or chat on whatsapp. That might even mean breaking a lot of the rules I said above, which is fair enough they’re only guidelines I’m repeating from much better authors who themselves frequently broke them. I really hope your next attempt is more successful. Good luck.

<p class="MsoNormal">P.S. below are 8 tips for creative writing from the phenomenal Kurt Vonnegut. These tips have helped me a great deal in the past.

<p class="MsoNormal">Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

<p class="MsoNormal">Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

<p class="MsoNormal">Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

<p class="MsoNormal">Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.

<p class="MsoNormal">Start as close to the end as possible.

<p class="MsoNormal">Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

<p class="MsoNormal">Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

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