hello sirs and madams, i have a fascination with writing, although i have no idea what kind of writing it is, i feel something forming in my head so i write it down. i am curious as to whether facepunch thinks i have any skill. feel free to critique but if you see any skill please let me know. i will try to post every couple days with new work...also my grammar is terrible please just let that part go.
[editline]16th May 2012[/editline]
this is from a monologue i read for a drama class, this is the early development of it so it is quite broken up, i fixed all the tense issues in the final draft so ignore those.
I can’t help but smile at the irony
I stepped through my threshold into the darkened hallway, I knew I was moving but I couldn’t feel my legs. Perhaps because the finality of what I was doing had begun to sink in…I managed to find a stairway and started up it. All the while feeling as if time had been hideously stretched to keep me from what I so desperately longed for…in this I had hoped I would feel as though I were dreaming, but no…everything was so sharp, so acute
I always wanted to fly,
the smiling lights of the city below promised comfort, as if to say go ahead, jump I’ll catch you but, the tears kept rolling silently and steadily down my face, and I made no move to wipe them away. What’s the point? They wouldn’t be falling much longer anyway.
Then I took a step into the beginning of the end, my bodyweight, pulled me away into the darkened azure, but everything slowed down anyway, I was alert…so alert of myself.
I passed a window with two lovers embracing and I thought of you and me. How it was. How it all broke away. I wish I had the chance... the chance to do things different. But, none of us will ever get that, will we? I suppose that's what dreams were for.
And ohh…how I’d dreamt;
Dreamt of forgiveness but Forgiveness in the end is a futile thing. It’s an illusion, because mistakes, mistakes cannot ever be fixed. And why fight, So I just closed my eyes and pretended it was One of those nights where the stars shine out over kind waters... and I pictured you there beside me, falling with me, but it isn’t you, it’s just the wind.
The wind, across my face, it stung…but it was a good sting. A purifying sting that would stay with me till the end of my journey, which was quickly to an end as I glided further downward…and as the concrete rushed up to meet me I can’t help but smile at the irony
Mind if I ask your age?
I thought there was some depth there and the scene was definitely building up in my head. Criticisms:
-I know you said ignore bad grammar but you ought to work on it so it isn't a problem. It might not affect the story itself but a few things jumped out at me which put me off a bit
-I didn't really see anything that actually made it ironic!
-Best stick to proper punctuation. e.g. 'ohh...how I'd dreamt;' should be 'oh, how I'd dreamt.' or you could use a full colon but not a semicolon in that instance I don't think. The punctuation you've used looks like internet talk as opposed to a professionally written book, you don't need to put several full stops every time you want a pause, that's what a comma is for.
Anyway that's a couple of thoughts
16 hah
god its quiet.
but...god...i love it. standing on the edge of that granite tower, the sun just starting to break the horizon. the air is crisp from the showers the previous night, the money is gone...all seven hundred fifty thousand dollars of it washed over the cliffs sometime last night. but thats not important, i never gave a damn about the money, no...i wanted the publicity. they were down at the base of the cables right now, waiting for the sun to reach them so they could follow me up, a posse of 22 men had been too scared to follow me up the night before. the storm deterred them, but not me, i could care less. the risk was worth it for this moment.
yup here they come, its been two hours but dont worry, you missed nothing...well if you did, i missed it too. slowly losing your mind tends to have side effects.
the first one climbs into view...a woman...short overweight and quite angry at being forced to pursue me to where she stupidly assumes i have cornered myself, they slowly emerge into my view. i count nineteen...the others must have fallen....thats unfortunate, no one else was meant to get hurt.
one breaks away and heads torwards me, i scream a warning but its ignored as the others start to close the fifty yard gap, silently spreading out to surround me. but i have nothing behind me besided a life saving view, and a dead drop. (time for the big finish) a smile, then a salute then i turn and jump off the granite tower, the 2,000 meter drop is quick in my mind and i smile the entire way down.
[QUOTE=brians bad;35988162]hello sirs and madams, i have a fascination with writing, although i have no idea what kind of writing it is, i feel something forming in my head so i write it down. i am curious as to whether facepunch thinks i have any skill. feel free to critique but if you see any skill please let me know. i will try to post every couple days with new work...also my grammar is terrible please just let that part go.
[editline]16th May 2012[/editline]
this is from a monologue i read for a drama class, this is the early development of it so it is quite broken up, i fixed all the tense issues in the final draft so ignore those.
I can’t help but smile at the irony
I stepped through my threshold into the darkened hallway, I knew I was moving but I couldn’t feel my legs. Perhaps because the finality of what I was doing had begun to sink in…I managed to find a stairway and started up it. All the while feeling as if time had been hideously stretched to keep me from what I so desperately longed for…in this I had hoped I would feel as though I were dreaming, but no…everything was so sharp, so acute
I always wanted to fly,
the smiling lights of the city below promised comfort, as if to say go ahead, jump I’ll catch you but, the tears kept rolling silently and steadily down my face, and I made no move to wipe them away. What’s the point? They wouldn’t be falling much longer anyway.
Then I took a step into the beginning of the end, my bodyweight, pulled me away into the darkened azure, but everything slowed down anyway, I was alert…so alert of myself.
I passed a window with two lovers embracing and I thought of you and me. How it was. How it all broke away. I wish I had the chance... the chance to do things different. But, none of us will ever get that, will we? I suppose that's what dreams were for.
And ohh…how I’d dreamt;
Dreamt of forgiveness but Forgiveness in the end is a futile thing. It’s an illusion, because mistakes, mistakes cannot ever be fixed. And why fight, So I just closed my eyes and pretended it was One of those nights where the stars shine out over kind waters... and I pictured you there beside me, falling with me, but it isn’t you, it’s just the wind.
The wind, across my face, it stung…but it was a good sting. A purifying sting that would stay with me till the end of my journey, which was quickly to an end as I glided further downward…and as the concrete rushed up to meet me I can’t help but smile at the irony[/QUOTE]
I've definitely got some suggestions for you. As Googlebob said, you can't just ignore bad grammar. Learning the correct formation of sentences should be a very high priority for you. It shouldn't be too hard, though. You're not far from the mark, but you like to to keep sentences running for much longer than they should, and you use incorrect grammar to try and clean up your run-ons rather than simply breaking them into smaller sentences.
Stylistically, I have one major point to make: STOP USING ELLIPSES. My [I]god[/I], I can't tell you enough how much I hate ellipses. Go through your story and strike every single one!
[b]Perhaps because the finality of what I was doing had begun to sink in…I managed to find a stairway and started up it.[/b]
[i]Perhaps because the finality of what I was doing had begun to sink in, I managed to find a stairway, and I started up it.[/i]
[b]All the while feeling as if time had been hideously stretched to keep me from what I so desperately longed for…in this I had hoped I would feel as though I were dreaming, but no…everything was so sharp, so acute[/b]
[I]I felt as if time had been stretched to keep me from what I so desperately longed for. In this, I hoped I would feel as though I were dreaming, but no; everything was so clear.[/I]
[b]I always wanted to fly,
the smiling lights of the city below promised comfort, as if to say go ahead, jump I’ll catch you but, the tears kept rolling silently and steadily down my face, and I made no move to wipe them away.[/b]
I always wanted to fly. The smiling lights of the city below me promised comfort. They seemed to say, "go ahead and jump. I'll catch you." The tears kept rolling down my face, and I made no move to wipe them away.
Yeah, gonna have to go with BDA here. I don't object to using the occasional ellipse but dear god, you're using them like every other line!
I... DO object to using the... ellipses.
In pretty much [B]every[/B] circumstance... it is a weak way to build suspense...
Posting to agree with everything BDA wrote, especially ellipses. The only place you should ever use them is if you're scooping the middle out of a direct quote.
And yeah, grammar and punctuation are foundational writing skills. You can't really critique writing and ignore them any more than you can critique a singer while ignoring the fact that they are hitting all the wrong notes.
But the most important thing I can say is read. Like as much as possible. When I was in grade school I always had a book that I'd read 10-60 minutes every day before I went to sleep. Find writing that inspires you and figure out what it is about it that you like so much. See if you can incorporate it into your own writing. But more importantly, you just have to get a ton of mileage in reading. After a while, you'll be able to spot misused words and grammar mistakes even if you can't articulate what's wrong with them--that's the benefit of reading a lot. You get a feel for the language, and it helps immensely when you start writing seriously.
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