~The Writer's Lounge~

You're all welcome guys.

btw, I just posted at the Publisher's Desk a small scene from a short story that I'm currently writing. It's called " The Salem Ghosts ." Tell me what you think, if it's interesting at all.

Aun

 

Finally it's break! Finals are over, back to reviewing!

PAD since you requested to just ignore the grammar I won't go into great detail. Only I'll mention that "ment" should me "meant" and "if I was" should be "if I were". There, no more grammar picking now

As far as the pacing of the story and the emotions it conjurs up, etc.

The whole tone of the story is very elegant and yet eerie so far. The style reminds me somewhat of the book The Shipping News; kind of prosey and poetic in a sense. Picturing the story in my mind, it seemed like Gattaca and AI, which are both movies I love by the way.

The only part where I felt it got someone long was in delving into the grandmother's past. I see the grandmother shaping up as a sympathetic character, but all the delving into her past was a little too long. A more succint version might be better.

I really like the story so far. I'm intrigued by the style and the story and I'd like to read more once you have it completed. The idea of how do clones feel is obviously one I've been interested in as well, as you might have seen in my short story Eye to Eye to Eye

-sj loves llyod chasseur

 

Hey, I'm new to the writer's lounge. I got to about the fifth archive, but I don't have time to look at anything, so...

I'm currently working on two stories. The first is a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid, which, without getting too detailed and lengthy, is about a smuggler (think Han Solo) who is betrayed by his smuggler friend and shot at a planet on the outer rim and left for after refusing a top secret mission that could cause galactic war. Upon crashing, he finds himself alive and is found by a Gandalf/prophet/messenger type and his assistant. He finds himself with amnesia and must try to learn everything over again. I can't say much more without spoiling everything else. I plan for it to be either a trilogy or one big story.

The second (which resulted from a bad case of writer's block in the first )
I only have this much to say about: In the future, the police officers are replaced by mechs. The mechs are sabotaged and given new orders and wreak on the city and must be stopped (real original, isn't it).

I can give a sample soon of the first if anyone's interested. Let me know.

 

Eugene, we're always open to stories to critique and give constructive comments on

-sj loves llyod chasseur

 

Okay. Just the first part (in the trilogy, of course) is far from done, but I'll try to post up some of it soon.

 

Thank you Solo, for your helpful comments on my story. I had suspected that most of the Grandmother parts needed some fine tuning. This is by no means my best story, it is merely the one I needed the most help with. Now if I could just find a way for the "show" not to be over shadowed by the "tell."

~PAd

 

Question: did anyone else participate in NanoWrimo?

www.nanowrimo.org

 

Hello. I am also new to this thread. I enjoy writing essays, but don't reall know how well I am at them. But I'm posting one of my papers that I wrote this last semester. It is an argument paper that I wrote in a narative short-story form. It's about a sollution for world peace and it takes place in the near future. I'd appreciate any feedback. It is entitled P.O.E.M.

Thanks - tabb

 

If you're interested in sharing more of your essays, you ought to try the Scholar's Desk.

 

Can someone please offer there expert advice here;

Is it a classic case of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' when it comes to posting creative writing on the internet for feedback and critique?

Isn't there a rule that if you publish your works on the internet, that a publisher then can't / won't publish the work. However, without putting it on the 'net, how can an aspiring writer get proper feedback and critique?

 

Has anyone got any advice on the above question?

 

Here's my comments on LoyalJedi's "flow writing", since I think this is the story to be reviewed next:

I think you have an excellent start. Detail would help set your story up immensely. Your characther seems to be kind of faceless; I can't understand him and see his emotions clearly in my head and can't understand his drive. Perhaps some description on him would help.

I cannot tell you enough how much description is important.

 

Here is an EXCELLENT essay by Philip Pullman (author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, among others):

Voluntary service

Can literature change the world? Or should it be above the concerns of society? Philip Pullman argues that while writers have wider duties, they must be faithful servants of their stories

Saturday December 28, 2002

What is the relationship between art and society? Can art do anything to make the world better, or is it quite useless? This is an old puzzle, and no one has solved it yet. At one end of the range of possible answers lies the Soviet idea that the writer is the engineer of human souls, that art has a social function and should produce what the state needs, and at the other end is the declaration of Oscar Wilde, in the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, that there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book; books are well written or badly written, that is all. However, he wasn't consistent about this: elsewhere, in "The Critic as Artist", he wrote "All art is immoral"; and it's notable that The Picture of Dorian Gray itself is one of the most firmly moral stories ever written.
I hesitate to disagree with Saint Oscar, whatever he said, but I've been telling stories for many years now, and in the course of that experience I've come to see a few things more clearly than I used to. I take it that art, literature, children's literature, does not exist in a special realm apart from society. I take it that storytellers are inextricably part of the whole world, and that one way of thinking about the relationship between art and society is to approach it by considering the responsibilities that follow from this.

First, whether or not responsibility begins at home, it feels as if it does. Our first responsibilities are financial: the need to look after our families and those who depend on us. What this means is that we should sell our work for as much as we can decently get for it, and we shouldn't be embarrassed to say so. Some tender and sentimental people, especially young people, are rather shocked when I tell them that I write books to make money. They like the idea of the artist starving in the garret so much that they think poverty must be a necessary condition in which to make art. But worry - constant, unremitting anxiety about bank statements and mortgages and bills - is not a good state of mind to write in. It drains your energy, it weakens your concentration. If we decide to try and make a living by telling stories we have the responsibility - the responsibility to our families, and those we look after - of doing it as well and as profitably as we can.

Then there is our responsibility to the medium in which we work. You can tell a story in mime, or in pictures, or in music; but language is the medium for most of us, and once we become conscious of the way language works, we can't pretend to be innocent about it. We can't maintain that it's something over which we have no influence. If human beings can affect the climate, we can certainly affect the language, and those of us who use it professionally are responsible for looking after it. This is the sort of taking-care-of-the-tools that any good worker tries to instil in an apprentice: keeping the blades sharp, oiling the bearings, cleaning the filters. That means, for example, making sure of the meaning of words by looking them up in a good dictionary. And not only that: words have a history, a flavour of their origin, as well as a contemporary meaning. We should acquire as many dictionaries as we have space for, out-of-date ones as well as new ones, and make a habit of using them.

Taking care of the tools also means developing the faculty of sensing when we're not sure about a point of grammar. We don't have to know infallibly how to get it right so much as to sense infallibly that we might have got it wrong, because then we can look it up and get it to work properly. Somet

 

Up!

 

Can we also use this thread for the posting of story ideas, snippits, short synopsis's, etc... This is a way of kick starting people's creativity, sharing ideas, etc...

--------------------------------------------

A private investigation firm is hired to obtain a DNA sample from an unsuspecting male, with the purpose to prove that he is the father of a woman's baby - the end result being a court case to award the woman regular child support payments.

However... there is no woman, and there is no child. The PI firm is an unwitting pawn in a scam - the DNA sample is used to actually produce a clone child. Then the poor man, who is proven to be the 'father' of the child, is sued for support payments. The ultimate scam.

 

Does anyone else have any story ideas to post?

 

I was thinking of writing a screenplay for the story of Marco Polo... it hasn't been done before (in terms of a major motion picture), and I think it is a very interesting story to tell.

Also, it has been widely acknowledged that the Bible is the greatest story ever told (especially the story of Jesus). I am thinking of using that same storyline, but in a science fiction / space opera setting... what do you think?

 

I want to post the story I am writing for critique, however, in some instances it has swearing, so I would consider it R rated... what should I do?

 

You might want to check with one of the mods, but from my experience, you would definitely want to edit out the swearing. Star them out or something. Unless you work something else out with the mods, which is unlikely.

I have several novels in the works right now... I'm going to share little synopsis of them here in a minute...

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

The swearing needs to be edited out. However, if the tone of the story in general is inappropriate, it's better not to post it at all.

 

Anybody have any thoughts on the Sci-Fi / Bible story?

 

Gath,

I think that is a very interesting idea. Although I could see there would be alot of problems in it for you. Firstly and primarily, there is going to be alot of sensitivity about the Bible and any adaption or story made that is similar to that. Secondly, its a very big story! I'd suggest you'd have to choose one small section and expand that into a greater story of your own choosing. Also, as you mentioned that you were going to translate that into a Science Fiction setting, I think it could be a very interesting idea for you to borrow, say, the 'formula' of the Bible and create one in the setting you choose. Say the Messiah character and disciples, treachery, death, salvation... its all there. A modern epic!

Tayschrenn

 

I would probably focus on the New Testament... I don't think that you neccessarily need to publish that you are using the Bible as a basis, but you are right about the themes, that is why I would like to do try it!

 

Well, if you ever get inspired to do it, i'd love to see what you come up with. It could be a very interesting read

Tayschrenn

 

Just moving this up.