Improvements · 9:04pm Dec 28th, 2012
Another long babbling of nonsense about my story telling weakness. You're not missing anything if you skip that blog post.
I've submitted my latest story to EQD.
Of course, I assumed from the start it would be rejected and I don't really have any plan of re-submitting it. My English is simply not at that level even with the precious help of pre-readers. However, it's always an interesting take on my current level and how much work is needed for me to get there. No doubt a truck-load of it, but less than the last time. But it's always useful to put yourself in question once in a while.
The first time I sent something to EQD, I received a simple "No." in 2 minutes flat with no explanation whatsoever. Must have been a record of the academy or something. This time it took three weeks, but considering they have like 60ish stories in queue, that's understandable. But the reply was far less "drastic".
This time, the reviewers actually sent back a list of grammar errors; which is pretty great to learn.
He also listed what he felt was my overall problems:
- Comma splices.
I will be frank; I had no idea about this one. I had to search the internet to understand what he meant exactly and how to fix it. Since now I know about it, I have no doubt I will be more careful with it. (Was the last sentence a comma splice!? hmm... Not going to be easy.)
- Comma problems with compound verbs.
I'm still unsure about that. I will need to research it more to understand what he meant. No doubt more particularity of English language I'm unaware of.
- Unnatural dialogue.
I have no idea how to answer to that. I always write dialogs as I would see them happening. I take the place of the character and ask myself if I would actually say something like that. If they are or sound unnatural, how am I supposed to fix that? I can't really rewire my brain to make dialog simulation more natural. That's a doozy.
- Lavender Unicorn Syndrome, or unnecessarily referring to characters with descriptors such as "the orange mare" instead of names and pronouns.
Seriously, I was told to diversify instead of always using names and pronouns. The worst is I actually replaced names and pronouns because it sounded extremely repetitive. There's not that many characteristics of a pony you can use to replace its name while staying away from it's gender, races or color. *shrug*
What often came back was that I was "telly":
>a scream of pain and distress//
Telly. Don't tell me how she feels. Give me that context that an observer would notice to infer her emotions. What does she do? What does she look like? Body language, facial expression, speech, etc.
Why would I describe every body twitches or facial expressions? Sounds like two totally different way of writing; you explain the emotion and let the reader imagine the physical reaction or you describe the physic and let the reader imagine the feelings. Is one more interesting than the other? I prefer the first, but is it bad story telling? For example, I don't like first and second person stories. Some people love them, but I don't appreciate reading those types of stories. Does it make them inferior? Most likely not. Is my way of telling a story inferior to another? Maybe. I guess I'm just not sure about that.
And I guess I have a hard time to distinguish between those:
>shiver in disgust//
This is telly. The shiver already gives us a mental image that implies an emotional state. Then you ruin it by informing us of the emotional state. Showing makes us think about the story and identify with the character. Telling just presents us with cold facts.
vs
>Her consciousness drifted away.//
Why? From the pain? From exhaustion? Don't just throw this out there. Make it reasonable.
Saying that she shivers without saying the source would let the readers try to understand why on its own. Cold? Rain? Emotions?
On the other hand, I don't explicitly say why she pass out, but I should have explained why? Wouldn't that be "telly" or I'm missing something again? Of course, I assume the reader remember the last two paragraphs where I explained how she was wounded and drained of heat and energy by the cold rain. But what am I missing?
If I don't explicitly want the readers to identify to the character but I want them to experience of a slice of their lives; is it bad story telling? Why am I under the impression that the hundreds of novels I've read was more about telling a story over manipulating the reader's emotions or making them identity to the characters? I guess I should start to read again. It has been a few years since I really devoured dozens of novels per week. Of course, I never really read romance novels before so I guess it doesn't help. No doubt the scifi novel collection I have wouldn't translate well to that type of story.
*sigh*
I think Lavender Unicorn Syndrome can apply when you could (and should) use the name or a pronoun, OR when any sort of reference to a character is unnecessary. There are plenty where the latter is true.
Also, an example of not being "telly", based on the "telly" example:
That was sort-of gory. I haven't read this story. Just to note that.
Okay, I remember people stating that EQD prereaders are 'overnitpicky', vague and things like that... but this is ridiculous. Lavender mare syndrome? Yeah, sure, start only using names and it will also be rejected because of numerous repeats of one and the same word - pony's name... and if not, then it's pathetic for I definitely do not want to read ten sentences and read their names in seven of them... I prefer lavender mare, thank you...
Then again it significantly boosted the word count... though it is telling a story without actually telling it. I took six words and stretched them to forty four. Over seven times more. All telling about precisely the same thing... Liking this kind of water is sick... It's like, let's have 40k words but only six or seven thousand will actually tell us something plot-relevant. The rest is just a nice package... well, I do not like to read something like this, aside from singular fics(or works in general, not only in fandom).
Telly? Yeah, change that and it will be 'showy'... also a bad thing...
Shiver in disgust is telly? Really? When I can list at least four possible causes of shivering from the top of my head(or however this saying goes, you may correct me here), not counting lupus...
No seriously, you can't tell that she lost conciousness from injuries? What are you, a computer? Only processing individual sentences?
Okay, I'm pointlessly ranting here. Almost everything I can say here will directly repeat after you, because seriously that is just... I don't even know what is it. Definitely not a way to educate someone on how to correct mistakes in their story.
Prereaders, yeah right. More like "I will tell you whatever is wrong in a completely nondescript way and it's your problem to figure out what I meant plus I don't really like you, because you can write things that I never thought possible to imagine"readers...
And what you told about first and second person stories is really good. While I don't care about the difference in question it's a very good query. Does the fact that you dislike something mean that it's worse? No, it does not. It simply is your taste and de gustibus non est disputandum.
The fact that some people can and want to read six paragraphs about the humidity of air and how it affects a pony's body and how that affects a pony in question and how that translates to the mood of said pony and how that affects the posture and body-language of said pony and how that affects other ponies and how that affects... STOP!!!! NOW!!!!... yeah, anyway it doesn't mean it's the only correct way of writing.
Seriously, I don't have issues with reading "She stomped in fury, scaring everypony." any more than with "Her face contorted in a fierce expression; her fur stood up, her body tensed and she brought up her hoof. A moment later a sound of keratin impacting cobble reverberated through the streets and everpony took an involuntary step back from the mare before them."... well, okay, the latter was a bit too much, really...I came up with it and it probably wouldn't be good enough... not a writer, nope that's not who I am...
Anyhow... yeah, my opinion about EQD prereaders is still not good. And while I know that there are friendly people, willing to help, for I read some blogs about their, actually very helpful, replies, this one is just... no, definitely not improving my opinion at all... on the contrary, actually.
Do not let this discourage you! We all love your work, otherwise we would not read it!
Keep it up!
P.S I overdid it...
657288 Well, that was quite explicit. The whole sentence was "She let out a scream of pain and distress as her head dropped in the mud.". Would "She let out a scream as her head dropped in the mud." be any better?
657380
That's nowhere NEAR explicit. And to tell you the truth, and I don't want to know what is.
And no, that would not work. How can you scream while your face is in the mud? It's like trying to scream in water - all you get is a muffled sound and a bunch of air bubbles. If you wanted to make it clear that she screamed before she hit the mud, then make sure you say that.
657355 Sorry, I just copy/pasted small parts of his reply; parts I actually don't understand well. Most of his points are about grammar and structure and are quite valid and helpful. Like I said, I didn't expect it to be accepted as it still contain way too much errors.
However, are EQD nitpicky sometime? I wouldn't disagree to say that sometime the form is more important then the content to some of them.
I'm not discouraged at all! My apologize if it was the mood I was letting out. I was more confused about some points and sometime it's good to stop and ask questions.
657389 Now, you're nitpicking too! I said "head" not "face"!
"She let out a scream of pain and distress as her head dropped in the mud."
scream => as => head drop
Her head wasn't in the mud yet when she screamed. In no moment I said her mouth was submerged. And I never said the mud was deep, you can easily scream if the mud is less than a inch deep.
657392
Oh, I'm sorry for overreacting. I understand that these are only bits but sometimes those bits are what the entire reply is based on...
And it's good you are not! I saw enough people starting to slow down after one critique or another. I don't want to see it here. Plus, I was simply stating what I felt at the moment. Felt like a right thing to write there at the end.
Sorry for making you go through that rant of mine. It's funny that I told myself "stop ranting" and then happily continued on. Oh, well, that's just me, I suppose.
657405 Don't be sorry, I liked it, it made me laugh and put in perspective some points of his critic.
657414
Glad to read that!
657401
Then . . . Maybe you could mention she fell backwards?
Hey, at least I'm being specific with it, and not nitpicking just for the sake of nitpicking. That's usually what EqD does, and it's REALLY annoying.
657431 That's why it's only one sentence among many others.
No need to pack everything in a single sentence. Her position, events and surrounding was described earlier.
It's a ship fic and there is no gore at all in it. Just a bit... muddy.
As a reader, I like when a big part of the details are left to my imagination. So it's maybe just me, but I don't like to be over-descriptive. There's some content needed for the understanding and some that I feel are just filling. Yes, different readers will see different things and will have different interpretation. Timothy Zahn is one of the author I really enjoy reading. There is one of his work, "Thrawn trilogy", which I read countless times. When Lucas Art decided to make a comic book out of his novels, I was disappointed. What the artists drew was nothing like what I imagined in my mind. It was so more awesome.
657440
WHAT THE-
I HAD TO-
WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THAT!!?
...
...
...
...
...
Granted, I probably should have assumed that was the case, but STILL!
657469 Would be weird to submit a 1 sentence story to EQD, right?
657474
I should have predicted you would say that.
657483 Aww... Come on, it was easy.
Maybe you could read that story I sent to EQD and give me your own review?
Of Apples and Diamonds
It's only 9k words, so it should be fairly quick to read. (Damn! Is it a comma splice?! I feel like I'm going to ask myself time all the freaking time now.)
657506
Dude, with my work loadup and my lack of time, I'd be lucky if I read it by next year!
Oh, wait . . .
Damnit.
...
...
No, but in all seriousness, I wouldn't have time.
I could look at it and give some small feedback, but that's all I could promise at this point.
657955 I don't mind.
Yeah, the EQD readers can be pretty critical, but just remember that it isn't just you, the vast majority of authors have theirs rejected for similar reasons. (Although most of them don't have unfamiliarity with english to blame!) That being said, I often feel like they DO bring up some good points. I'd pay attention to what they have to say when you are writing, some stuff more than others though. If I were you I'd focus less on the Lavender unicorn mare issue, you're right, sometimes you can't really avoid it, although one way to fix it might be just to just put yourself into situations where you don't need to use as many pronouns and identifiers.
I would definitely try to keep in mind the show don't tell thing though, a lot of authors can really stand to improve by paying attention to this. I guess it isn't really something that I imagine can be explained very well, but the example he used is pretty good, "shivers in disgust" depending on the context, it could be very apparent to the reader that the character is disgusted without you explicitly stating it, so doing so can feel kind of redundant and patronizing. Again it really isn't one of those things that can be explained well, so just keep it in the back of your mind.
658667 "although one way to fix it might be just to just put yourself into situations where you don't need to use as many pronouns and identifiers."
REALLY easier said than done.
I'm familiar with this pre-reader. When you say you had to look up what a comma splice was, it would have been explained. Look up in the detailed feedback, and when the PR pointed out a couple of specific examples of one, he would have explained what one was, and if he was in a good mood, would have given a few tips on how to fix one.
PRs are often called nitpicky, but here's the thing: they don't have time to edit every single line of a story. If they note comma splices, it's because there were enough of them in the story to be distracting.
Lavender Unicorn Syndrome isn't something you have to avoid entirely, but consider what it does: reiterate information we already know. Calling Dash "the cyan pegasus" multiple times adds nothing to the story. We already know that about her. If it's done only a few times, fine. Or if it's done in a scene with many other characters so that pronouns get confusing and names get overused, that's fine, too. But for the most part, it's no better than dedicating a paragraph to describing how each of the Mane 6 looks. It's redundant information that the reader can be expected to know.
As to show v. tell, the PR would have also given an explanation of that, too, but I'll give it a try. Consider what happens if an actor walks out on stage with an expressionless face and declares, "I'm sad." You have the information you need, but it's rather boring, and you haven't been made to think about the character at all. If he instead staggers in, flops down into a chair, stares at the wall, doesn't notice his wife in the other room calling, "Honey, is that you?" Maybe he wipes a couple of tears from his bloodshot eyes. You're learning about him by context and putting the pieces together yourself, so you're thinking about him and involved with his character. It makes for a much more interesting read. We're hardwired to read others' emotions that way in real life, so it feels more natural to do so in reading, too. Note that increased word count isn't going to fix the problem on its own, as many authors try to do. I can write just as lengthy a description of him that doesn't make you think at all. He walks in, sad, and after a bad day at work. He barely hears his wife's voice, deciding his frustration needs to be dealt with first. In exasperation, he resigns himself to his chair.
The second version doesn't paint a picture at all. It's up to the reader to decide what "sad" looks like, if he even bothers to, since he already has the information. The first version can play like a movie in the reader's head and gives the same emotional content without forcing the reader to do the heavy lifting on visualizing it.
Learning show v. tell is definitely a bump obstacle in writing. It takes a while to get your head around it, but once you do, you'll realize how big a difference it makes.
Finally, I'll say that you got some extensive feedback here. This PR commonly gives long reviews like this one, and wouldn't do so if he felt your story wasn't worth it. I'm glad that at least you can see it for what it is, but it's certainly discouraging to see how much venom gets directed toward PRs, when they volunteer significant amounts of time to give feedback. And, for the record, PRs are aware of their own biases and do approve stories they don't like. You don't have to enjoy a story to recognize good writing.
670256 Sorry, but he didn't explain what comma splice was. He only said copy/pasted a sentence and said "comma splice". I don't really care that he would explain that anyway since Wikipedia and the like give very good explanation. The fact that he was the first one to notice it is great to fix it. It's good enough for me. He wasn't a pre-reader in the sense that he is fixing thing, and more in the sense that he is giving reasons why a story is refused. Like I said, I'm really happy he actually gave some feedback. My first submission was received with a flat "No." with no reasons whatsoever. I like to get feedback to be able to improve.
As for the LUS, you can check the story for yourself. I'm pretty sure I didn't went overboard with it, but I could be wrong. After all, I did change some pronouns and names for some descriptive, so maybe I did change too many. It's something I will definitely take care of reducing in the future.
As for the "Show vs Tell"... It's something I might never fully understand. First of all, I have not much understanding of emotions in general. To me, someone telling me directly that the character is sad allow me to imagine what he might looks like without the need of extensive description. From my point of view, it could become useless filling that doesn't make the story move on. Personally, I like when I read a story that doesn't constraint my mind to a specific visual, and let me visualize what it could look like. I like to make up my own movie when I read a story, not to watch the movie the writer saw in his own mind. I already know what "sad" might look like, no need to describe that. You will need far more words to convey the same information. However, I can understand why others might not like that and would prefer to "guess" the emotions behind a descriptive visual and to have that visual fully described as if they are watching a movie. It is something I will look for in my future writing.
And I'm not sure you really spotted the right pre-reader, as I'm not sure he thought the story was worth it. After all, he even said he didn't read half of it because he thought it was flat and inexpressive with unnatural dialogs. I'm just happy he did give some feedback even if he felt the story wasn't worth it.
I felt that PRs was very well aware of his own bias. Most are, but not all. But the other way around is true too. Good writing is no guaranty of a good story and it is something I don't like about EQD. They sometime post stories that are perfect in a writing point of view, but are boring to read.