FE: Dawn of Darkness Feedback Thread

[Life]

No. I've already put out 32 fucking chapters. There's no way I'm rewriting ALL of that. Also, you've only read the first chapter. You cannot legitimately say the whole story needs rewritten. How do you know that the quality of the writing doesn't get better over time?

How do I know that it does?

If I'm not interested midway through the first chapter, I don't have a reason to continue. It's that simple.

But tell you what. I'll dissect a paragraph from the last chapter written. Does that sound fair? If your writing has improved, then I'll say so. I have nothing to gain by claiming that it's remained shit if it truly has gotten better. In fact, I then look like an idiot.

I don't see how COLLEGE teachers can be so terrible.

State universities. Quality there is horrendous.

I like the sentences this way. It's a combination of my style and my co-author's and we really like it. Deal with it.

Don't ask for critique then. If you're not going to take it, why ask for it in the first place?

As I said before, no.

Then stop asking for critiques. It's that simple.

[Sunwoo]

Anacybele, one thing I get the feeling about you is that you like to imagine stuff in your head and you have this "great story" that you think up and imagine. So you don't like to change out of what you have planned. But that's a problem in itself at times. It's good to have focus, but it's bad to be so rigid and unbending that you can't change something that doesn't work. Even if you don't want to listen to Life because he's "being rude", it wouldn't kill you to look past the tone. What if it were me telling you the exact same thing he said, except with a different tone? Would you listen to me?

Also, you shouldn't let your "style" become rigid either. I've changed my writing style many times in many years, and I am still working on it. You need to experiment a bit. And while I can understand why you wouldn't want to rewrite the entire story, then give us an example of recent writings that are more indicative of your "skill"? Or set aside some time for actual rewriting? Do you want to be an actual author someday? If so, then this is important. No one ever writes a first draft and it's suddenly publishable or acceptable material.

[Anacybele]

How do I know that it does?

If I'm not interested midway through the first chapter, I don't have a reason to continue. It's that simple.

But tell you what. I'll dissect a paragraph from the last chapter written. Does that sound fair? If your writing has improved, then I'll say so. I have nothing to gain by claiming that it's remained shit if it truly has gotten better. In fact, I then look like an idiot.

That's fair enough. Everyone else that has given an opinion on this matter said the quality improved, just to let you know. This includes those who gave actual critique as well.

State universities. Quality there is horrendous.

Good thing I didn't go to one of those then, huh?

Don't ask for critique then. If you're not going to take it, why ask for it in the first place?

Uh, so I can improve the writing style that my co-author and I use?

Then stop asking for critiques. It's that simple.

You try rewriting 32 chapters of a long story, a majority of which are more than 10,000 words in length.

[Life]

That's fair enough. Everyone else that has given an opinion on this matter said the quality improved, just to let you know. This includes those who gave actual critique as well.

Your idea of critique and mine aren't exactly the same thing.

Here's an example of my example of critique. When I was in Grade 12 (years ago), I had to write a compare/contrast essay which was worth about 25% of our grade. I wrote an essay, thought it was the shit (seriously, it was the bee's knees) and handed the rough copy into my teacher to overlook. She hands it back to me five minutes later and tells me that if I were to hand that in seriously, I'd get a failing grade on the spot. Why? Because (and I quote exactly) "this writing offends my eyes".

Essay was a mini dissertation. Bordering on 7500 words. I had been working like a dog for a month on it and in 5 minutes, it was ripped to shreds. But it was done so by someone who knew what she was talking about.

Do I think it's easy to rewrite this stuff? No. But if you truly cared about your work, it would be wise to do so.

Good thing I didn't go to one of those then, huh?

Who knows? All I can say is that any qualified English teacher would be handing you a failing grade right now.

Uh, so I can improve the writing style that my co-author and I use?

Why bother? I'm being blunt and honest right now and you refuse to take the advice.

You try rewriting 32 chapters of a long story, a majority of which are more than 10,000 words in length.

Do you care about your work? If you honestly did, it wouldn't be a chore to rewrite the whole thing multiple times. Why acknowledge that part of your work is shite? Why not make it non-shite? Why not make it good?

Anyway, here's a random paragraph from the last chapter written. I'm going after syntax since the content doesn't bother me.

The battle ground on and, sometime later, Tavon's healing staves had begun to run out of power.¹ Several of them, their energies spent, literally crumbled in his grasp.² Snarling a curse, he decided to join the fight himself.³ He withdrew from his robes a tome bound in black leather⁴, spoke an incantation, and large waves of darkened purple clouds and mist billowed out onto the battlefield.⁵ A few of the Astrynian soldiers that had defected to Bryan's side fell to this powerful dark magic, some sent toppling to the ground and others sent beyond the realm of the living.⁶ The tome which the traitorous duke had used was clearly one of the stronger dark magic tomes, probably either a Verrine or Balberith tome.⁷ Though Verrine wasn't quite as powerful a spell as Balberith, as the latter was the strongest known form of dark magic in either Tellius or Altarais,⁸ either could inflict grievous harm.⁹ No less disconcerting was Tavon following up this arcane assault with blasts of Arcfire and Arcthunder as well, the strongest of the common forms of fire and thunder magic.¹⁰ A handful of light magic users who'd left the traitorous duke's service, realizing too late that their foe had turned the tables,¹¹ were sent flying amidst salvos of fireballs and lightning bolts. Within a short time,¹² Tavon had smashed his way through to Bryan, Francois, and Eric.¹³

(1) sounds awkward with having that "sometime later" in the middle of the sentence. You're also using the wrong tense. You've written the entire paragraph in past perfect tense when simple past tense will do. Try "As the battle wore on, Tavon's healing began to run of power".

So you know, past perfect tense is used to specifically date actions (essentially, this action was completed before another action). If Tavon's staves "had begun to run out of power", then it means that he used them before they ran out of power. But this is already known which makes the usage of the tense unneeded. In short, it just sounds bad.

(2) has a redundancy in the sentence. I already know that the staves are used up. You don't have to tell me this again. It's fine to mention that they're crumbling but the "energies spent" part has no reason to exist when I already know that.

(3) - Rather than "snarling a curse", Tavon could just... well, curse. "Cursing, he decided to join the fight." Why does he have to "snarl a curse"? In addition, putting "himself" there serves no purpose.

There's two lessons you can learn from this one little mistake. The first is that you currently leave no room for the reader to imagine what Tavon does. You're describing his every move and that's over-informative. If he's just "cursing", I can imagine whatever curse I wish. It lets the reader feel more involved because rather than you dictate his character, my mind now does it. The goal is to lead the reader on but not hold them by the hand.

The second lesson is that you use too many words when one will suffice. This is a pretty common thing in your writing but this is the best example of it.

I had to break (4) and (5) up into two different parts. Read the sentence "he withdrew from his robes a tome" out loud. It doesn't sound right. The way to put is "He drew out a bound leather tome from his robes [...]". I get that it's creative license and your style but first and foremost, it has to be readable. As for (5), a comma before "and" exists and shouldn't. On top of that, you don't have to say that both "clouds and mist" exist. If you put one, that would be enough.

(6) - You have two complete sentences here and yet, you connect it with a comma. Commas are essentially word breaths in a sentence. Full ideas should be sentences unto themselves. If you still want only one sentence, here's where you place a semicolon. In addition, the both halves of the sentence sound clumsy. I think it's because of the excess of words here.

(7) - This is a good example on how to properly use commas. So yeah, you're correct here. That being said, you're in past perfect tense again and that's where it sounds off. Take a look at (4) and (5) again. Notice how you used simple past tense there? Aside from the terrible placement of the words themselves, that sentence sounds a lot better than (7) simply because you're using the correct tense.

(8) - Once again, I'm stopping you in the middle of the sentence. The idea here is that Balberith is stronger than Verrine because Balberith is the strongest dark magic in the land. That's all you need to say. You're essentially confusing readers here unnecessarily by placing "as the latter [...]" in this sentence. Learn how to be concise.

(9) - First of all, "either" is completely the wrong word here. The word you want is "both" since it doesn't matter which tome is used and "both of them could inflict grievous harm". However, this little section is clunky when tied into (8). Try this: "Balberith was more power than Verrine due to it being the strongest dark tome available in any land however both tomes could inflict grievous harm upon the target." Sounds a lot smoother, right?

(10) just sounds bad. It's really worded horribly. If someone else wants to take a crack at this, be my guest. It just doesn't sound natural whatsoever.

(11) is another example but one that I can sorta fix. First of all, remove the middle part of the sentence. It doesn't really need to exist at all. The next part is that you have way too much going on in this sentence. Take "traitorous duke" for example. Have you mentioned that the Duke was a traitor before? If so, this is redundant. In fact, is it important that these mages used to work for the Duke? Have you mentioned that fact before? If so, leave the entire idea at home.

(12) - No. Use "Within a short amount of time" instead. The former is clunky.

(13) - No comma before the last item on a list. Just place the word "and". In addition, this is a case of where past perfect tense works. So you were correct here.

There you go. A grammar mistake in almost every sentence. I took this passage from Chapter 32. You might have claimed that the quality of writing gets better but this shows otherwise. There's a lot of things you can learn from just rereading this paragraph out loud.

EDIT: Look, I'll cut you a break. Your creative mind is great. Not everyone in this world is creative. I'm not and I don't really care. But being creative is one thing. You also need the basics of the English language if you're ever gonna even think of surviving as an author or anything writing based. And you need a lot of work on simply learning how to write.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Life

[Sunwoo]

"No less disconcerting was Tavon following up this arcane assault with blasts of Arcfire and Arcthunder as well, the strongest of the common forms of fire and thunder magic."

Ugh, I'm gonna try taking a crack at this.

"Tavron quickly followed through with blasts of Arcfire and Arcthunder."

"Following this attack were blasts of Arcfire and Arcthunder, which unleashed destruction on the enemy." (And perhaps changing the structure of the following sentence.)

I dunno.

[eclipse]

Time for me to jump in? Ugh. Go back to the fanfiction topic in Serious Discussion. Look for a post about most fanfictions being bad because they're stuck in permanent first draft mode. If you're really, REALLY interested in making this something to be proud of, listen to criticism. You might have had a point if he was pointing out irrelevant things, or not pointing out where you need to improve. However, Life has some really good pointers, especially with regards to language. If you took this to the publisher, and they said the same thing, would you tell them to stop being rude?

[Anacybele]

Your idea of critique and mine aren't exactly the same thing.

Here's an example of my example of critique. When I was in Grade 12 (years ago), I had to write a compare/contrast essay which was worth about 25% of our grade. I wrote an essay, thought it was the shit (seriously, it was the bee's knees) and handed the rough copy into my teacher to overlook. She hands it back to me five minutes later and tells me that if I were to hand that in seriously, I'd get a failing grade on the spot. Why? Because (and I quote exactly) "this writing offends my eyes".

You don't know what critique is then. That is just a downright insult. I'm not saying critique should be sugar-coated or anything, but a simple "You need to work on this, and you need to work on that, but keep trying, and you'll get there" will do just fine. Critique isn't supposed to be insulting or discouraging. It only makes the author feel bad and like they'll never write well, like you've been doing to me.

Why bother? I'm being blunt and honest right now and you refuse to take the advice.

No, you're being insulting.

Do you care about your work? If you honestly did, it wouldn't be a chore to rewrite the whole thing multiple times. Why acknowledge that part of your work is shite? Why not make it non-shite? Why not make it good?

Of course I care about my work. I'm just not going to spend my whole life rewriting this insanely long story that I've already poured so much effort into over the past several YEARS. Not to mention I have rewritten several chapters in the past already. Trust me, when I started writing, you wouldn't believe how horrible my stuff was. I was blind to it at first too. But I looked back after awhile and realized how horrible it is. But I've re-read Dawn of Darkness over and over the way it is now. I've not had this same opinion. I enjoy it every time. And that's saying something.

Also, yeah, YOU think it isn't good. This is YOUR opinion. Not everyone is going to agree with you.

Anyway, here's a random paragraph from the last chapter written. I'm going after syntax since the content doesn't bother me.

(1) sounds awkward with having that "sometime later" in the middle of the sentence. You're also using the wrong tense. You've written the entire paragraph in past perfect tense when simple past tense will do. Try "As the battle wore on, Tavon's healing began to run of power".

So you know, past perfect tense is used to specifically date actions (essentially, this action was completed before another action). If Tavon's staves "had begun to run out of power", then it means that he used them before they ran out of power. But this is already known which makes the usage of the tense unneeded. In short, it just sounds bad.

(2) has a redundancy in the sentence. I already know that the staves are used up. You don't have to tell me this again. It's fine to mention that they're crumbling but the "energies spent" part has no reason to exist when I already know that.

(3) - Rather than "snarling a curse", Tavon could just... well, curse. "Cursing, he decided to join the fight." Why does he have to "snarl a curse"? In addition, putting "himself" there serves no purpose.

There's two lessons you can learn from this one little mistake. The first is that you currently leave no room for the reader to imagine what Tavon does. You're describing his every move and that's over-informative. If he's just "cursing", I can imagine whatever curse I wish. It lets the reader feel more involved because rather than you dictate his character, my mind now does it. The goal is to lead the reader on but not hold them by the hand.

The second lesson is that you use too many words when one will suffice. This is a pretty common thing in your writing but this is the best example of it.

I had to break (4) and (5) up into two different parts. Read the sentence "he withdrew from his robes a tome" out loud. It doesn't sound right. The way to put is "He drew out a bound leather tome from his robes [...]". I get that it's creative license and your style but first and foremost, it has to be readable. As for (5), a comma before "and" exists and shouldn't. On top of that, you don't have to say that both "clouds and mist" exist. If you put one, that would be enough.

(6) - You have two complete sentences here and yet, you connect it with a comma. Commas are essentially word breaths in a sentence. Full ideas should be sentences unto themselves. If you still want only one sentence, here's where you place a semicolon. In addition, the both halves of the sentence sound clumsy. I think it's because of the excess of words here.

(7) - This is a good example on how to properly use commas. So yeah, you're correct here. That being said, you're in past perfect tense again and that's where it sounds off. Take a look at (4) and (5) again. Notice how you used simple past tense there? Aside from the terrible placement of the words themselves, that sentence sounds a lot better than (7) simply because you're using the correct tense.

(8) - Once again, I'm stopping you in the middle of the sentence. The idea here is that Balberith is stronger than Verrine because Balberith is the strongest dark magic in the land. That's all you need to say. You're essentially confusing readers here unnecessarily by placing "as the latter [...]" in this sentence. Learn how to be concise.

(9) - First of all, "either" is completely the wrong word here. The word you want is "both" since it doesn't matter which tome is used and "both of them could inflict grievous harm". However, this little section is clunky when tied into (8). Try this: "Balberith was more power than Verrine due to it being the strongest dark tome available in any land however both tomes could inflict grievous harm upon the target." Sounds a lot smoother, right?

(10) just sounds bad. It's really worded horribly. If someone else wants to take a crack at this, be my guest. It just doesn't sound natural whatsoever.

(11) is another example but one that I can sorta fix. First of all, remove the middle part of the sentence. It doesn't really need to exist at all. The next part is that you have way too much going on in this sentence. Take "traitorous duke" for example. Have you mentioned that the Duke was a traitor before? If so, this is redundant. In fact, is it important that these mages used to work for the Duke? Have you mentioned that fact before? If so, leave the entire idea at home.

(12) - No. Use "Within a short amount of time" instead. The former is clunky.

(13) - No comma before the last item on a list. Just place the word "and". In addition, this is a case of where past perfect tense works. So you were correct here.

Okay, I can correct any typos or grammar mistakes and such. That's easy enough. But I won't rewrite the whole story. Also, when you say use "simple past tense" instead of "perfect past tense" it sounds like you're just telling me to use less detail/description. But critiquers in the past told me I needed to use more detail and description. So I started doing that. Look, some styles will use more detail while others won't. I prefer more detail, simply put.

Also, "Balberith was more power than Verrine" makes no sense whatsoever. Another thing, this part: "available in any land however both tomes" There's no transition at all from the word "land" and the word "however." You don't use the word "however" that way. I would have placed a period after "land," capitalized the H in "however", and added a comma after the word.

Anything else you've said here sounds fine to me.

You might have claimed that the quality of writing gets better but this shows otherwise. There's a lot of things you can learn from just rereading this paragraph out loud.

I disagree. I read the paragraph out loud. The only issue I had was my god damned habit of stuttering when I speak. I wish I could stop doing that. It's embarrassing when I have to speak in front of a group of people. >_<

It seems to me that I just prefer more detailed sentences than you do. But that's fine. Each to their own, after all.

Seoyeon: If I used one of those, how would the reader know what the hell Arcfire and Arcthunder are? Even though the story is mainly targeted towards an audience that likes the Tellius series and likes/doesn't mind the IkexElincia pairing, you should still tell the reader what certain things and who certain people are. Some other readers who happen to come along may not know if you don't. I learned this from critique, actually.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Anacybele

[Jotaro Kujo]

"No less disconcerting was Tavon following up this arcane assault with blasts of Arcfire and Arcthunder as well, the strongest of the common forms of fire and thunder magic."

Here we go, because this sentence is grinding my gears.

"Tavon continued his arcane assault with the strongest forms of fire and thunder magic, Arcfire and Arcthunder."

"Tavon blasted his enemies with Arcfire and Arcthunder, the strongest of the common fire and thunder spells."

Listen, I'm not about to tear you apart. You need to improve your writing. Yes, Life is tearing you a new one but he is still making valid points that you are ignoring just because he's being rude about it. If you were to try to get this published, they'd probably be worse than he's being.

I used to write like you. You want your story to feel realistic like very well written stories, that make you feel as if you are in the world the writer has crafted for you. You think that you must achieve this through detailing everything and leaving nothing up to the reader. The thing about reading is that you need imagination to construct the world around the story. The words are only there to give you a guide and let your mind fill everything in.

If you leave everything to yourself, as the author, you're limiting your story in ways you probably don't even know that you are. The writing process is very difficult and tedious, but you will benefit from what you're getting in terms of critique. It's not fair to yourself, nor is it fair to the people who are really trying to help. Yes, there is a thing as writing style, but writing style does not excuse poor grammar and what have you.

I implore you to listen to what they're saying and go with it.

[Life]

You don't know what critique is then. That is just a downright insult. I'm not saying critique should be sugar-coated or anything, but a simple "You need to work on this, and you need to work on that, but keep trying, and you'll get there" will do just fine. Critique isn't supposed to be insulting or discouraging. It only makes the author feel bad and like they'll never write well, like you've been doing to me.

Critique, above all else, is meant to be true. In fact, I frown upon coddling within critique because it shows weakness.

When Roger Ebert says that a movie is bad, it's because the movie was bad. He doesn't coddle the director because it's not his job to. It's his job to point out the good bits and the bad bits and explain why.

I have pointed out the positives and negatives in your syntax. It happens that the negatives outweigh the positives by a mile. I'm not going to encourage you or discourage you. I'm only going to tell you the absolute truth of your writing. If you feel bad about it, maybe you don't have enough thick skin. Which would mean more than anything that you can't handle it.

Of course I care about my work. I'm just not going to spend my whole life rewriting this insanely long story that I've already poured so much effort into over the past several YEARS. Not to mention I have rewritten several chapters in the past already. Trust me, when I started writing, you wouldn't believe how horrible my stuff was. I was blind to it at first too. But I looked back after awhile and realized how horrible it is. But I've re-read Dawn of Darkness over and over the way it is now. I've not had this same opinion. I enjoy it every time. And that's saying something.

Also, yeah, YOU think it isn't good. This is YOUR opinion. Not everyone is going to agree with you.

I'm not saying that it's not good. I'm saying that it's poorly written. There's a difference.

You reread your story thinking that it's perfect and you refuse to look at basic problems in the English language. God damn it, girl, it's your native tongue. Stop butchering it so badly.

Okay, I can correct any typos or grammar mistakes and such. That's easy enough. But I won't rewrite the whole story. Also, when you say use "simple past tense" instead of "perfect past tense" it sounds like you're just telling me to use less detail/description. But critiquers in the past told me I needed to use more detail and description. So I started doing that. Look, some styles will use more detail while others won't. I prefer more detail, simply put.

Something that you'll learn in writing is that there's a fine line between too much detail and not enough. You're putting way too much detail into every action.

The issue that arises is that it's not a pleasant read for your reader. As the writer, your concern should be ONLY for the reader, not for yourself. Let the reader imagine these things, don't explain every little detail.

There's a battle going on. Show bits and parts of it. Let the reader's mind fill in the rest. That's how they enjoy the story, if they can feel connected to it.

Also, "Balberith was more power than Verrine" makes no sense whatsoever. Another thing, this part: "available in any land however both tomes" There's no transition at all from the word "land" and the word "however." You don't use the word "however" that way. I would have placed a period after "land," capitalized the H in "however", and added a comma after the word.

Whatever. I speak two languages and I haven't slept. Half of the shit I was writing, I was thinking of it in a different language completely. Pardon me for a couple of tiny mistakes after a long essay.

That being said, this thread has gone around in circles. You refuse to take the advice that we've given you which frustrates all of us. Me especially. I'm going to ask a mod to close this thread and your story thread due to both of them being negative influences on the community (you give us migraines because we're trying to help you and you refuse to accept it).

[Anacybele]

I used to write like you. You want your story to feel realistic like very well written stories, that make you feel as if you are in the world the writer has crafted for you. You think that you must achieve this through detailing everything and leaving nothing up to the reader. The thing about reading is that you need imagination to construct the world around the story. The words are only there to give you a guide and let your mind fill everything in.

If you leave everything to yourself, as the author, you're limiting your story in ways you probably don't even know that you are. The writing process is very difficult and tedious, but you will benefit from what you're getting in terms of critique. It's not fair to yourself, nor is it fair to the people who are really trying to help. Yes, there is a thing as writing style, but writing style does not excuse poor grammar and what have you.

Uhhh. I'm just going to say that I have no idea what you're trying to tell me here.

Also, I just noticed that most of the grammar errors Life pointed out were those my co-author made, and most of the correct grammar Life pointed out was writing I actually wrote.

Life, how about this: Take a look at the first chapter of my upcoming FE7 fic, Bonds of the Beloved. I've finished the first draft, but I have not posted it because my co-author and I decided to place revising it on hold. I don't think this draft is anywhere near as good as anything in Dawn of Darkness, but it might be a good idea for you to see it anyway, just so you can compare my actual writing to my co-author's. It should help us see who is really the one with all the grammar mistakes here.

EDIT: Fine, this thread can be locked (I'm tired of all the rude comments), but I DO NOT want my actual story thread to be locked. Even if I can't have feedback, there's no reason I shouldn't still be allowed to update the story.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Anacybele

[Jotaro Kujo]

Uhhh. I'm just going to say that I have no idea what you're trying to tell me here.

Also, I just noticed that most of the grammar errors Life pointed out were those my co-author made, and most of the correct grammar Life pointed out was writing I actually wrote.

Life, how about this: Take a look at the first chapter of my upcoming FE7 fic, Bonds of the Beloved. I've finished the first draft, but I have not posted it because my co-author and I decided to place revising it on hold. I don't think this draft is anywhere near as good as anything in Dawn of Darkness, but it might be a good idea for you to see it anyway, just so you can compare my actual writing to my co-author's. It should help us see who is really the one with all the grammar mistakes here.

EDIT: Fine, this thread can be locked, but I DO NOT want my actual story thread to be locked. Even if I can't have feedback, there's no reason I shouldn't still be allowed to update the story.

It's ok lol, after I posted it I realized that it didn't make much sense :u

Well then do yourself a favor and drop the co-author. as much as they might want to be on this project, clearly they're doing you more harm than good. If all of those mistakes are all due to that person, a lot of your story's issues should correct itself with they're off the team, no? It's a lot of words? Please. when you do something that you truly love, you will find out that it's much easier to do than you think.

For my creative writing class, my assignment was to write a two page story. That was it. Half of the kids in my class didn't even make it to a page. I wrote 12 pages. Why? It wasn't because I wanted to be a showoff, saying "hey look at me class, I'm so awesome I can write 12 pages, unlike you, that can't even write 1!". I did it because I lost track of the page count. I kept writing and writing, letting my ideas flow until I made it to the end. Writing a long story is easy once you find your niche and go with it.

[Anacybele]

It's ok lol, after I posted it I realized that it didn't make much sense :u

I see. I had a feeling that maybe my sucky interpreting skills were getting in the way again. I will admit, I've never been good at interpreting writing at times. I'm a writer, after all, not a reader (unless I'm reading my own stuff to look for errors and all or just for enjoyment, of course). xP

Well then do yourself a favor and drop the co-author. as much as they might want to be on this project, clearly they're doing you more harm than good. If all of those mistakes are all due to that person, a lot of your story's issues should correct itself with they're off the team, no? It's a lot of words? Please. when you do something that you truly love, you will find out that it's much easier to do than you think.

No. I'll correct his grammar errors and I'll rewrite parts of his sentences if I must, but I'm not dropping my co-author. He's a close friend and we've been working together for years. I can't just say "hey, I don't feel like working with you anymore because some people think you're a bad writer." I'd hurt him terribly. I love his writing style, I think it's the best I've ever seen. Never before was I so interested in reading something before I came to his works. Yeah, he abuses commas and crap, but nobody is perfect. I can overlook his mistakes because everything else is written excellently.

And...I've fallen in love with him...

For my creative writing class, my assignment was to write a two page story. That was it. Half of the kids in my class didn't even make it to a page. I wrote 12 pages. Why? It wasn't because I wanted to be a showoff, saying "hey look at me class, I'm so awesome I can write 12 pages, unlike you, that can't even write 1!". I did it because I lost track of the page count. I kept writing and writing, letting my ideas flow until I made it to the end. Writing a long story is easy once you find your niche and go with it.

Oh wow. And I agree. Writing a long story is easy once you find your niche and go with it. I remember having to write a Sci-Fi story for an assignment back in seventh grade. I have no interest in that genre, but I did come up with ideas that I still actually like. The writing was horrible, but I did my best. My story ended up being longer than everyone else's as well.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Anacybele

[Jotaro Kujo]

No. I'll correct his grammar errors and I'll rewrite parts of his sentences if I must, but I'm not dropping my co-author. He's a close friend and we've been working together for years. I can't just say "hey, I don't feel like working with you anymore because some people think you're a bad writer." I'd hurt him terribly. I love his writing style, I think it's the best I've ever seen. Never before was I so interested in reading something before I came to his works. Yeah, he abuses commas and crap, but nobody is perfect. I can overlook his mistakes because everything else is written excellently.

And...I've fallen in love with him...

If you don't want to drop him, then fine, but read his stuff more carefully so you can catch his grammar errors. That's about the only advice I can give you.

[Anacybele]

Works for me. I realize I did miss some of his errors in earlier chapters as well.

I'd still like to show my draft of the first chapter of Bonds of the Beloved, so we can compare. I swear I don't use commas as much as he does. That's why I've deleted some that he adds in. xP

Edited September 18, 2012 by Anacybele

[Florete]

I wasn't going to do this, but I saw enough that I thought it worth posting. In other words, OCD kicked in.

Also, as far as the status of the thread, Tangerine had made a decision and was going to post, but it seems she's lost power. I don't know exactly what she had planned, so I'm just going to wait for her and post my own thing in the meantime.

Oh, and like I said, my co-author is the one that likes to abuse commas. I actually delete a few here and there, so there's usually even MORE of them before the final version of a chapter is posted. I'll be sure to delete more of them next time if need be. I don't want to be rude to my co-author, but I do this in hopes that he sees that I think he uses too many commas.

I will also call bullshit on the commas because of the grammar mistakes I've just highlighted. YOU don't know how to use commas.

Those were not mistakes.

Anyway, here's a random paragraph from the last chapter written. I'm going after syntax since the content doesn't bother me.

The battle ground on and, sometime later, Tavon's healing staves had begun to run out of power.¹ Several of them, their energies spent, literally crumbled in his grasp.² Snarling a curse, he decided to join the fight himself.³ He withdrew from his robes a tome bound in black leather⁴, spoke an incantation, and large waves of darkened purple clouds and mist billowed out onto the battlefield.⁵ A few of the Astrynian soldiers that had defected to Bryan's side fell to this powerful dark magic, some sent toppling to the ground and others sent beyond the realm of the living.⁶ The tome which the traitorous duke had used was clearly one of the stronger dark magic tomes, probably either a Verrine or Balberith tome.⁷ Though Verrine wasn't quite as powerful a spell as Balberith, as the latter was the strongest known form of dark magic in either Tellius or Altarais,⁸ either could inflict grievous harm.⁹ No less disconcerting was Tavon following up this arcane assault with blasts of Arcfire and Arcthunder as well, the strongest of the common forms of fire and thunder magic.¹⁰ A handful of light magic users who'd left the traitorous duke's service, realizing too late that their foe had turned the tables,¹¹ were sent flying amidst salvos of fireballs and lightning bolts. Within a short time,¹² Tavon had smashed his way through to Bryan, Francois, and Eric.¹³

As for (5), a comma before "and" exists and shouldn't.

That comma is good.

(6) - You have two complete sentences here and yet, you connect it with a comma.

"Some sent toppling to the ground and others sent beyond the realm of the living" is barely a complete sentence, if at all, and would look very poor in context here if it was supposed to be read as a complete sentence. Seriously, does this sound good at all: "A few of the Astrynian soldiers that had defected to Bryan's side fell to this powerful dark magic. Some sent toppling to the ground and others sent beyond the realm of the living."

The first is a complete sentence, the second is not. It could be made into a complete sentence pretty easily (like "Some were sent toppling to the ground and others beyond the realm of the living"), but it is not a complete sentence as it is. Furthermore, without re-wording the sentence a lot, it really does sound better as one sentence connected with a comma than as two sentences.

Secondly, I'd like to point out that your own use of a comma here isn't good. Either no comma or a comma before "and" would be how to do it.

Commas are essentially word breaths in a sentence. Full ideas should be sentences unto themselves. If you still want only one sentence, here's where you place a semicolon. In addition, the both halves of the sentence sound clumsy. I think it's because of the excess of words here.

No, this isn't the place for a semicolon. Your definition on the use of commas is essentially correct, but it's better stated as pauses in speech. Where there's a pause (LIKE RIGHT HERE), put a comma. The rules for using them are not always black and white, but this basic idea will serve you pretty well.

Try this: "Balberith was more power than Verrine due to it being the strongest dark tome available in any land however both tomes could inflict grievous harm upon the target." Sounds a lot smoother, right?

As Ana said, making this two sentences with the second starting at "However," would be better. Alternatively, it could be kept as one sentence with either a comma or semicolon before "however." No punctuation there whatsoever is completely wrong, though.

(13) - No comma before the last item on a list. Just place the word "and". In addition, this is a case of where past perfect tense works. So you were correct here.

Read. It really depends on where you learned English whether or not you'll use a comma before the last item in a list. My dad grew up in Canada and doesn't use it, I grew up in California and I was always taught to use it. I prefer seeing it there since it has less of a chance of leaving ambiguity.

No offense, Life, but it doesn't look to me like you're the one who should be giving advice on comma usage; not a single one of your comma "corrections" was correct. Your other criticism for the paragraph I can largely agree with, but the only misuse of commas I might be able to see comes more from her style being too wordy and requiring more commas as a result than actually using them incorrectly.

[Life]

Those were not mistakes.

Technically no. But for aesthetics of the writing, they are.

No offense, Life, but it doesn't look to me like you're the one who should be giving advice on comma usage; not a single one of your comma "corrections" was correct. Your other criticism for the paragraph I can largely agree with, but the only misuse of commas I might be able to see comes more from her style being too wordy and requiring more commas as a result than actually using them incorrectly.

None taken.

On a technical level, you're right. They can stay. But the way I learned English was the Canadian/British style (keep your commas to a minimum) on top of the fact that they just don't look correct in the sense of "why is this here?". It doesn't really read nicely and I know of very few books (I can't even name one) where I'll see it.

But you're completely right on her style. Because the sentences are so long, these things are like overgrown bushes.

Oh and spare me when you go after my own English grammar, I've spent too much time talking and writing in Hebrew that my English has begun to recede.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Life

[Florete]

But you're completely right on her style. Because the sentences are so long, these things are like overgrown bushes.

Since I'm talking to Lifey here on MSN, this is the only thing I want to add to, and it's for Ana: Have you ever heard the phrase "Show, don't tell?" I have not read much of your story (actually, I've pretty much only read that one paragraph Life quoted), but from what I have read and from some of the comments I've seen, your style is way too wordy and descriptive; you tell. It is probably the root of a lot of the problems in your writing, this being one of them for sure. When I looked at each sentence individually, none of your comma usage was necessarily incorrect (commas can either be there or not be there half the time), but when I read the entire paragraph as one piece, it was really easy to see why someone might say you use too many commas. Describing every little detail is more often a bad thing than a good thing.

[eclipse]

Funny, I JUST got out of a meeting that dealt with this (more on an academic side). IIRC, the consensus on the Oxford comma was "be consistent".

[CrashGordon94]

Oh and spare me when you go after my own English grammar, I've spent too much time talking and writing in Hebrew that my English has begun to recede.

Fair enough, but wouldn't it be worthwhile to at think about that when you're critiquing English grammar?

I mean, not necessarily give it up completely but maybe just keep a thought along the lines of "My English has gotten a bit rusty, perhaps I could be making a mistake too." in the back of your mind?

I don't intend any offense by it, just thought it needed to be said.

The only other relevant thing I have to say is regarding the stuff of about reading or not reading chapters, the "rewrite the whole story" thing and the politeness issue.

Firstly, while saying that you don't want to read the rest of the story is a valid complaint (as is "I know you said it improves but this opening doesn't give me a lot of faith in that."), it doesn't seem prudent to criticise the chapters you haven't read. What I basically mean is "It's fine if you don't want to read the rest of the story but if you don't then don't criticise the rest of it. If you want to criticise the other chapters, then please read them first." I know it might come across as hypocritical to complain about this sort of thing, but that's the point: I get so much hate for criticising things I haven't read/played/whatever, so I'm sure you guys wouldn't want to do the same things I have a problem with!

Secondly, "Just rewrite the whole thing!" really ISN'T constructive. It doesn't tell you what to change and as much as you might scoff at Ana not wanting to rewrite the whole thing from scratch, it's a valid complaint: To have to redo a massive story from the beginning WITH NO IDEA OF WHAT TO CHANGE is absurdly tough, and it wouldn't solve the problems since she wouldn't know what specifically to change, it would probably be tons of wasted effort redoing the bits that don't need it and missing the bits that do. Of course that only applies to the bits where you tell her to change the whole thing, for most of the time you're golden with detailing what needs to be fixed and even went above and beyond with that rewritten paragraph!

Lastly, while Ana is truely overreacting for the most part, it would really seem that you sometimes insult more than you need to. That's a genuine complaint and something that ought to be fixed, you might say "ignore the tone" and such but it still causes problems:

1) It makes it harder to take for the "target" with no real gain.

2) The "target" could very justifiably skip over parts that seem like outright insults to get to bits with actual criticism. If you insult a lot this could lead to them missing a genuine point, and nobody wants that.

Again, no offense meant by any of this, I really just thought it needed to be said.

[Anacybele]

Since I'm talking to Lifey here on MSN, this is the only thing I want to add to, and it's for Ana: Have you ever heard the phrase "Show, don't tell?"

But of course. I was taught this all throughout school. I try my best to show, not tell. I know the difference too. Example:

When Ike saw Elincia holding their newborn son, he was overwhelmed with joy and happiness.

This is just telling me that Ike is overwhelmingly happy to be a father and that his wife and child are healthy.

When Ike saw Elincia holding their newborn son, he paused at the doorway, the corners of his mouth curving upward in a large grin. He gazed upon the sleeping baby in his wife's arms and then returned Elincia's own smiling gaze as she cradled the infant.

Now this version of that scene is not telling us, but SHOWING us that Ike is overjoyed about being a father by describing his gestures and body language. It's also even showing that Elincia is just as overjoyed by saying that she's smiling.

Granted, I may not do a good job of this all the time. Nobody's perfect, after all. But I definitely understand how to show and not tell.

[Tangerine]

Critique, above all else, is meant to be true. In fact, I frown upon coddling within critique because it shows weakness.

When Roger Ebert says that a movie is bad, it's because the movie was bad. He doesn't coddle the director because it's not his job to. It's his job to point out the good bits and the bad bits and explain why.

Roger Ebert doesn't address anyone involved in a work directly. Roger is paid to write reviews for whatever media outlet he's involved with at the time. His reviews are there for the viewers who choose to use them as a guide, not anyone else. You have to understand that everyone is different, artists partaking in their trade especially. Everyone responds to certain types of critique differently. Someone who wants to pride themselves on their ability to critique a work can do it however they want - someone who wants to pride themselves on their ability to help improve the artist needs to be able to adapt based on the person they are working with.

Anacybele clearly does not respond to your style of critique well. The solution is not to keep trying to hammer it in, but to decide what you want to do. Is your goal to help her? Then cut it out and try something different. Is your goal to say your piece and let the author do what they want with it? Then actually leave when you'd made your points clear. How much easier would it be if you cut out the garbage? How many less posts would this "argument" have spanned?

Remember that "flaming" is against the feedback forum guidelines, there is some pretty borderline content in some of your posts. Keep it clean!

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

Anacybele, I've told you before that you're a bit too thin skinned. I understand it takes time to get used to the type of critique that you'll receive in a community like this one; there is certainly much less back patting here than you might find on the sites you've said you used. Try to avoid getting into drawn out arguments that aren't going to go anywhere :P.

Random stuff in thread I felt like responding to:

It really depends on where you learned English whether or not you'll use a comma before the last item in a list. My dad grew up in Canada and doesn't use it, I grew up in California and I was always taught to use it. I prefer seeing it there since it has less of a chance of leaving ambiguity.

Sadly, you Americans have made this acceptable!! It should be proper critique to correct spelling and grammar based on the Canadian & English usage, but you guys are so big that it's okay to be wrong now >:OOOO.

Anyway, let's keep things clean and impersonal from now on :P. There's no need to lock the thread with that in mind.

[Anacybele]

Yes, Tangerine, I am too sensitive sometimes... I really try not to be, but it's not easy. And as you say, I'm not exactly used to being critiqued in a community like this. But I shall keep trying to be on good behavior.

[Jotaro Kujo]

Have you ever considered using semicolons instead of commas as a conjunction for one sentence that could be split into two? If you really must have some form of punctuation that's not a period, I think a semicolon would work better for your longer sentences.

For example, from a little short story I'm writing, I use the semicolon like this:

"Wine?" he offered. There was silence from the other; he was afraid that if he opened his mouth, he'd get sick.

I mean, I'm not an English major and I don't claim to be the greatest at writing, but sometimes, semicolons as a substitute for commas work, but don't go overboard with them either.

[Anacybele]

Yeah, my co-author introduced me to using semicolons. Before that, I didn't know they were used in literature at all. xP

[Loki Laufeyson]

Yeah, my co-author introduced me to using semicolons. Before that, I didn't know they were used in literature at all. xP

O___o wut? Wut?! Im sorry i just...cant..

Every piece of literature uses semicolons. Every. One. Sure, i admit they are hideously tricksome (for some people including me) to use but they are very very commonplace.