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@rochellaine I didn’t notice the change in style, actually. Except for the fact that there was more going on and less internal monologue. There are still pieces of narration that seem to go on for too long, mostly in the first half. To streamline things more, you could have the narrator only talk about things that directly pertain to what’s happening in the moment, like his thoughts about the girl and the gibberish Chinese. I think it goes together smoothly, though, as far as the first and second halves are connected. 🙂 ;D
*Giarstanornarak tries to melt chair*
Also, Daeus has 22 turtles in his signature.- Rank: Loyal Sidekick
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@rochellaine I decided to pop in today.
The narrator’s voice isn’t quite up my alley, but I think you’re handling it pretty well in the story. It has a good flow. Ooh, it might be fun if you give Joshua an accent.
I think the biggest thing is the description. As I read the story, I got a little disoriented with all the narration and stuff going on and not having any concrete descriptions to visualize it for me. I think one of the best things you could go for your story is to go through and beef it up with some description.
Hope this helps. Keep at it, you’ve got a splendid start!
@rochellaine I actually really this style of writing! That casualness of it…. I also agree with what Dekreel said.
Could I critique it in Goggle docs too?
I'm a Kapeefer 'TIL WE'RE OLD AND GREY!
www.jennaterese.com@sam-kowal Thanks for your comments.
Are his recollections about his street life irrelevant to what is happening? I wanted to have them in there so you get a little bit of his background, and he uses them to explain why he acts certain ways.
@waterlily I actually agree. 🙂 I never use this type of voice, which is why I posted it here, because I didn’t know how to do it right. I generally like third person much better than first person, (or “I books” as my sister and I sometimes call them to our grammatical mother’s chagrin). I would love to give Joshua an accent. I’m just not sure what accent to use. He’s English, and a street kid, but there are millions of different dialects among the different parts of Great Britain, and I’m afraid of mixing them up or using one wrong. He’s also supposed to have a better education by the time he’s telling the story, so the narration voice probably wouldn’t have as pronounced an accent. I could put more of an accent in his dialogue, though. I have changed his speech patterns so they are different from what I use. He doesn’t use contractions as often, for example.
I am trying to fix the description a bit, but haven’t gotten it quite right yet. Have you read the version in google docs?
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
@jenwriter17 Please do! I’m glad you like it! And I will need a lot more advice before I can make this story as clean and smooth as it should be.
Here is the link again, in case it’s hard to find in all the posts going back and forth here.
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
@rochellaine They’re not irrelevant, but having things about his street life pop up in his mind mostly when things in the scenes remind him of that life, and only things relevant to that moment, would help to organize his narration more.
I think readers will learn about why he acts the way he does simply by learning about what kind of person he is- he doesn’t need to explain too many things and why he did them to the audience.
*Giarstanornarak tries to melt chair*
Also, Daeus has 22 turtles in his signature.@sam-kowal Could you point out a place where they aren’t relevant? I can’t find any myself, but that could be because I wrote it. 🙂
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
@rochellaine Here |https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ko4Su754S_pyYGy-mSM_wQy2viP_i5iA3reQCtjwi7A/edit | is a kind of sliced up version where I made the paragraphs and thoughts less rambling, to show you what I meant. Also, one thing you could do is add more descriptions and senses; like how when he falls in the water, does it bite his skin with cold, or is it warm? I added a couple instances of things like that. When you’re running through scenes with Joshua’s kind of abbreviated narration as an overview to the story, not much detail is actually better, but eventually settling into grounded scenes can make for a stronger story.
Anyway, its a great idea, and Joshua’s thoughts and psychology are something that seem really interesting to read more about 😀
*Giarstanornarak tries to melt chair*
Also, Daeus has 22 turtles in his signature.@sam-kowal Thanks! As you probably know by now, I took a look at the doc. It actually helped a lot as an explanation of what I need to fix.
I definitely can’t use your examples – because his voice totally changes in them from my version of his voice. 🙂 But I consider that a good thing because otherwise I’d feel like you had written it instead of me. So now I can see what you mean by your examples, and I can write my own to fix the story.
Thanks again!
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
@rochellaine Looks good to me 🙂 As with the calendar part, I don’t mind it so much at first as it also causes him to elaborate more on his past, which is interesting. But when he says that he didnt know it was important at first, it feels a little out of place for some reason.
I can't believe it's not butter!
@rochellaine Oh, that’s great. 😀
🙂 Yep, I didn’t expect you to want to try to keep things like my descriptions, especially because I don’t really have any experience writing Joshua’s voice, I just wanted to throw those in as examples.
Also, running quickly through scenes that don’t have much significance to the main story is a great way to move ahead with things, but the significant scenes are good to put description and detail in.
😉 You’re welcome
*Giarstanornarak tries to melt chair*
Also, Daeus has 22 turtles in his signature.@jenwriter17 Hi, thanks for your comments. (I’m assuming it was you.)
I’m planning on editing and finishing the story hopefully in a few days or a week, and then I’ll post the completed version here – I guess for more critique. 🙂
So thanks everyone, and I’ll talk to you about the story in another little while.
@sam-kowal @dekreel @itisastarrynight @waterlily @dragon-snapper @notawriter"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
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