An unnamed novel about a post-apocalyptic world that you guys get to create
31 replies, posted
I'm migrating to a thread with a more relevant title. Mods can close this.
Is it just me or did the 'bye boy' part about (presumably) the dog seriously resemble that bit in I Am Legend where he [sp]kills his dog friend after it was infected?[/sp]
Were you influenced? Just interested.
Maybe subconsciously. I haven't seen that movie in a couple of years at least. I just thought the bond between a man and his dog in an otherwise emotionally desolate condition would be one of the utmost intensity, and that the loss thereof would evoke emotion in readers.
I'm glad you knew it was a dog, too. I didn't wanna flat out say it, since I couldn't figure out how to without it sounding awkward.
Very well written.
[QUOTE=RubberFruit;28054537]that bit in I Am Legend where he [sp]kills his dog friend after it was infected?[/sp]
[/QUOTE]
I always ruined the mood and told people it looked like he was getting a bad BJ during that scene. :)
On a serious note, this IS well written. I'm not a writer but it seems well balanced - descriptive without being bloated with adjectives. As cliche as it is to say, it left me wanting more.
Then tell me what should happen next? Or at least an idea :)
Decent, but an awfully heavy start. Anyone who has a dog or likes dogs or animals in general won't be queuing up to read the rest =/
Crusaders also sounds a bit middle-ages. ;o
I love my dog as much as the next person, and that's what drew me to the story. I've experienced losing dogs before. I can relate emotionally.
[QUOTE=MakoSkyDub;28064742]Decent, but an awfully heavy start. Anyone who has a dog or likes dogs or animals in general won't be queuing up to read the rest =/
Crusaders also sounds a bit middle-ages. ;o[/QUOTE]
I think that was my intent.
Also, it does sound sort of medieval, but I'm setting up the stage for details about the war that's going on. I chose the word "crusaders" since I thought I'd base it on some kind of god or deity.
-snip-
Hmmm I'm still neutral on it. I'm getting the world, not so much the narrator. He's been living in this environment for ages, yet he's still overwhelmed with emotion every time he crosses a road. He then pauses to consider the matter of scarves and beanies. It doesn't ring true, and it'll be hard to make him convincing if you continue to use him as the sole device for describing everything and waxing lyrical about the situation and explaining mundane things and so on and so forth..
So it's not [i]bad,[/i] it's not sucking me in either though.
Well his dog just died, so he's a bit emotional.
As for the description of the beanie, I'm trying to make an obvious image of the character, and I'll include more details later. I want to make it so that you could draw a picture of him if you wanted to.
Maybe that's bad :o
I'd cut the description of the beanie. Mention he's wearing one, that's a good detail, but it's best to leave your description of the main characters somewhat vague. Sieze upon just a few important, but small details and let the reader fill in the spaces around those. This makes characters far more relatable, because the reader projects some parts of himself onto them.
The beanie can be one of those details if you'd like, no worries, but this is not really an appropriate time to describe it. This is supposed to be an emotional scene, it's hardly the time to ponder the origins of headware.
Yeah, I totally get where you guys are coming from. It's a little awkward right there. I wanted to eventually get somebody to paint a picture of what he looks like, but I can do away with unnecessary description. Maybe I'll just cheat and tell the artist what he looks like.
Can somebody please suggest what happens next?
[QUOTE=Matix;28079906]I want to make it so that you could draw a picture of him if you wanted to.
Maybe that's bad :o[/QUOTE]
No, it's not bad. It's just awkward to do it bit-by-bit with untimely insertions about his appearance etc while more important things are happening. You just need to use a deliberate paragraph to define this guy enough to be getting on with, say, in an action lull, he slumps against a wall to rest or what have you and there's a puddle of petrol by him. He looks himself over in it, and you can nail his whole physical presence for the rest of the story, and add anecdotes about his clothing/rifle/accessories/whatever.
It's a good idea to do this very early on as well; in the book I'm reading right now, only one character is well described as soon as he's introduced. Otherwise, the pictures in my head of the narrator and everyone else from the start are hazy, and when the author suddenly slips in some adjective like "Dark-haired" or "Squat" or whatever, it's bound to conflict with my mental image and it fucks the immersive quality. Books are the best tools with which to hook someone into a world, but they have to be written correctly to achieve it.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;28083142]it's best to leave your description of the main characters somewhat vague. Sieze upon just a few important, but small details and let the reader fill in the spaces around those.[/QUOTE]
I disagree with this, as stated above ;o
If you leave it vague, you're putting yourself in a hole. If your reader has your characters in their head, you can't mess with them fifty pages down the line, you can't add details that seemed obvious to you all along, since that character in YOUR head will always be a touch different. You should make it your priority to get the reader as close to your vision as possible. Use lush detail, and set it down early.
I'd keep my idea of what he looks like to myself if I were you! It's just a preference, and by no means a rule, but I think it's way more fun to have characters which more easily lend themselves to the imagination. When I write I never give detailed descriptions of characters, I'll usually just give them one strong feature for the reader to work with, and then he fills in the rest as he learns more about the characters.
I might describe one character as simply being tall and scruffy, or another one as having a soft and friendly face. It doesn't even have to be a physical characteristic that I seize upon: I've described a character as simply having a nasally voice and a pronounced lisp.
None of these details are specific, but they tell you just enough for your imagination to pick up the idea and roll with it. Like I said though, that's just a matter of preference, there's no rule saying that you [i]can't[/i] describe your characters more thoroughly.
How about in this dilapidated suburb he finds a dilapidated wardrobe with a dilapidated mirror, and then give a good description of his dilapidated self?
It's yo' story dude.
Probably shouldn't attempt this "You guys direct what happens next and I'll write it" thing. Your novel will decompose very quickly with some sort of text adventure format behind the scenes xD
Unless this is just an exercise is flexing your literary muscle. Which is actually a great idea to hone your skills. I would do it, but I'm kind of paranoid about writing for no reason in case I lay down some really great storytelling and then can't use it again for anything else.
Ok, yes. Find him a mirror. And maybe stick a name or handle on him?
Just be careful with this reflection tactic. Keep your description brief. Nobody looks at themselves in the mirror and thinks "I'm exactly this tall, style in my hair like this, have these colored eyes, and exactly such amount of facial hair. Here are my unique features: ______"
I imagine your character as being very skinny, since you've said that he doesn't eat regularly. A good way to tell us that he's skinny would be for him to look at the mirror and be startled by how gaunt he's become. Something like that, only for whatever feature you want the reader to know about most.
The "looking in a mirror" trick is a pretty commong way to show your character to the readers, but for obvious reasons you've got to take care with it.
Yeah, I'm not entirely sure what I'll do yet.
And to Mako, this is just an exercise. If it turns out nicely, I'll save it, but for now it's just practice.
You're a good writer. I would try to ease up on the I's though because it reads a lot like "I did this and then I did this and then I looked here and I did this..."
Oh I know! It's a terrible habit and I noticed it as I was writing :(
I do it sometimes too <3
This is really great, I wish I could write this well... My stories are always shitty because I'm trying to get it all on paper, not tell the story the way I want to.
[editline]18th February 2011[/editline]
For example, I would consider [url=http://www.facepunch.com/threads/1033356-Aufstieg-Der-Nazi-Partei-(WIP)?p=26460345&viewfull=1#post26460345]this[/url] to be the best fiction I've ever written, and it's because I'm taking someone's story and changing it, instead of writing my own ideas down.
[QUOTE=Christy;28117637]You're a good writer. I would try to ease up on the I's though because it reads a lot like "I did this and then I did this and then I looked here and I did this..."[/QUOTE]
Not something that can be avoided if you're writing solely in first-person. And I don't think Matix has overloaded on the "I -verb-"s to any significant extent.
[QUOTE=MakoSkyDub;28124139]Not something that can be avoided if you're writing solely in first-person. And I don't think Matix has overloaded on the "I -verb-"s to any significant extent.[/QUOTE]
I have to disagree but this is why writing in the first person POV is usually seen as the most lazy.
I can't judge though since my last book was in that POV.
-snip-
[QUOTE=Matix;28265242][b]Part 3[/b]
The air around me was pressurized by a solid silence; the breeze had ceased. Cracks in the distance faded to occasional clicks. A glass dome had been placed over me, and all was momentarily innocent. I had finished my orbit around the complex and was satisfied. The air was serene, and I observed the scene before me. Most of the structures were hopeless mounds of rubble, but several on the eastern end were relatively intact. I broke the silence with my step and started toward them, walking alongside the road rather than in the middle of it. Perhaps it was a leftover habit from the old world, one of the many marks of civilization I had yet to relinquish my hold on. Regardless, it made potential escape swifter. In my current state of mind I tried to be inquisitive and perceptive, yet fear continued cloud my consciousness.
These homes that had risen in the spirit of life now burned in the fires of war, and in a way I felt a certain connection with them. My gaze fell upon the murky puddles that dotted the terrain, shining like glass on the surface The stillness of the air transformed them into mirrors, in which I watched myself walk across the landscape, flitting from one tiny world to another. My appearance surprised me a bit: unkempt stubble had grown into a short beard, and my hair now extended beyond my ears. The only thing I could still recognize about myself was my clothing, and even that seemed to have grown a bit as I shrank from malnutrition. The sleeves of my coat hung loosely off my arms, and my pants now swayed freely as I walked. I shut my eyes, swaying from dizziness, and a small amount of bile rose to my throat.
When I opened my eyes the first of the eastern buildings sat before me. It was remarkably untouched, with even a bit of paint still clinging to the side-boards. The windows were boarded with sheets of plywood, and the door crudely nailed shut as if the perpetrator had been in a great hurry. The surrounding structures were dismal sights, making this one seem all the more magnificent by comparison. It was as if the flames had skirted this structure and gone about their business elsewhere. I was thankful for the first time in weeks, a place to hide out for a while, and maybe even some food to sate my roaring stomach. Normally, I would fear possible inhabitants, but in this case it seemed that everything had been nailed shut from the exterior, and I really had no choice but to take the risk at this point. Still, apprehension consumed me and I scouted for a weak point in the fortifications. The door frame was swollen with moisture, making the planks difficult to remove, but the barrel of my rifle made an adequate tool, and with a little time and effort I managed to free the door. The hinges were rusted solid and the knob was missing, but it was otherwise in fair shape. I pried it open, accidentally ripping the door from the frame in my attempt. Oh well, the door was a luxury.[/QUOTE]
Rewrote some parts the way I felt they should have been written. Maybe this is rude, but I felt it needed to be done. Ignore me if you think so.
I notice you use a lot of semi-colons, and improperly sometimes. I would avoid them and try to be a bit more fluid and simple with your sentence structure. Lots of broken sentences is generally bad, unless you're Hemingway. Too many "I"s can be bad, but most people don't even notice it when they read. You have adequate amounts of description, but it's not always enough to give us a real picture of what's happening. Don't try too hard though or you'll just flood it.
Oh, hey, this has been moved anyway. Well I'm probably late but whatever.
Doing well Matix, though moving a touch slowly for your narrators love of soliloquising everything to the bone. I've only got some minor issues with Part 3 other than that, just small snags that jar the flow of the story a bit.
[i]"The air was serene, and I observed the scene before me."[/i]
Serene and Scene come close to rhyming, and you wanna be careful of that.
[i]"These homes that had risen in the spirit of life, now burned in the fires of war; I related to them."[/i]
This sentence is unnecessary I think, and very awkwardly constructed as it is. I'd cut it mercilessly.
[i]"...and my hair now extended beyond my ears."[/i]
This wording has too much potential for humour in this serious context, I feel. Such is often the case if you experiment with applying somewhat mismatched terms to each other (I.E "extend" used to describe hair.)
[i]"...and my pants now swayed freely as I walked."[/i]
Much the same here, I think "pants" is too informal and amusing a term to be used in a serious setting such as this. Best avoided.
[i]"Normally, I would fear possible inhabitants, but everything had been nailed shut from the exterior. Still, apprehension consumed me."[/i]
Something of a contradiction here.
[i]"I pried it open, ripping the door from the frame. I didn’t mind; a door was a luxury."[/i]
First let me say that I actually like this bit, "a door was a luxury" is probably my favorite line in Part 3. (To note, Applecrap butchered that whole last part. He isn't to be trusted =/)
However, it seems awfully blasé to be ripping doors from their hinges without a care when you're a half-starved self-confessed bundle of nerves. I would have imagined your character cowering and glancing wildly around if he had to make a loud noise while doing something.
If I've been picky, it's because there were no major flaws to comment on. Keep it up.
[QUOTE=MakoSkyDub;28314433]Doing well Matix, though moving a touch slowly for your narrators love of soliloquising everything to the bone. I've only got some minor issues with Part 3 other than that, just small snags that jar the flow of the story a bit.
[i]"The air was serene, and I observed the scene before me."[/i]
Serene and Scene come close to rhyming, and you wanna be careful of that.
[i]"These homes that had risen in the spirit of life, now burned in the fires of war; I related to them."[/i]
This sentence is unnecessary I think, and very awkwardly constructed as it is. I'd cut it mercilessly.
[i]"...and my hair now extended beyond my ears."[/i]
This wording has too much potential for humour in this serious context, I feel. Such is often the case if you experiment with applying somewhat mismatched terms to each other (I.E "extend" used to describe hair.)
[i]"...and my pants now swayed freely as I walked."[/i]
Much the same here, I think "pants" is too informal and amusing a term to be used in a serious setting such as this. Best avoided.
[i]"Normally, I would fear possible inhabitants, but everything had been nailed shut from the exterior. Still, apprehension consumed me."[/i]
Something of a contradiction here.
[i]"I pried it open, ripping the door from the frame. I didn’t mind; a door was a luxury."[/i]
First let me say that I actually like this bit, "a door was a luxury" is probably my favorite line in Part 3. (To note, Applecrap butchered that whole last part. He isn't to be trusted =/)
However, it seems awfully blasé to be ripping doors from their hinges without a care when you're a half-starved self-confessed bundle of nerves. I would have imagined your character cowering and glancing wildly around if he had to make a loud noise while doing something.
If I've been picky, it's because there were no major flaws to comment on. Keep it up.[/QUOTE]
You should read the other thread. I've made a lot of revisions, a lot of which addressing these very issues. Anyways, I like your point about the door. I will reword it to be less extreme. Also, I'm not sure what country you live in, but in America, "pants" [i]is[/i] the formal word for, well, pants. I can't think of any other word to call them. I'm unclear on your complaint about the hair extending beyond the ears, and I'm afraid I fail to see how that's humorous at all. As for "serene" and "scene" rhyming, it's not really an issue but I'll figure out another word just for you :buddy:
All of the other points have been revised already, I believe. You should comment on there from now on.
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